To Live And Die In LV
by The Rush
Summary: FINISHED! I always think it’s fairer if the game knows they’re being hunted. Just know, and tell all your friends back at CSI, you’re all marked down. Only a matter of time. I’m going to get you back. All of you.
1. Chapter 1

Heyhey, everybody! Did you miss me? Well, no worries, I'm back now, and I've got another story for you. CSI! (duh) I'm a big fan of CSI, and I thought of this plot, so I decided to put it into words for you.

Enjoy!

---

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except the ones I made up.

**Chapter 1 **

"So, let me get this straight," said Jim Brass, scratching his bald scalp. "You've just gone out and bought a fifteen inch bowie knife. Brand new, big and shiny. So you head over to your neighbour's place to show him up."

"He'd been harassing me," said Jack Harrow, the suspect being interrogated. "He said that if I didn't stop throwing parties with my friends, he was going to kill me."

"So you get this BFK and go over to Harry's house," continued Brass. "Tell him that you're not that soft. You're not going to take this crap from him. Then he pulls out his gun. So you cut him across the stomach. Problem is, he doesn't die. Now you're in the hole. You know that if he calls the police, you're going to be in trouble, because you didn't have any provocation to go over brandishing that knife at him."

"So what're you going to do?" said Jack cockily. "You can't prosecute me for self-defense."

"It would have been self-defense if he'd died then and there," said Brass. "But it became murder when you took his gun and shot him in the head."

Jack was momentarily speechless, and simply stared at the dark wooden table. Behind the glass window, invisible to Jack Harrow's eye, stood Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown. They had seen the whole conversation.

"If he'd just called the cops, he'd've gotten off with a couple years tops," said Warrick.

"Some guys are just too macho to let their rivals get the better of them," said Catherine with a sigh. Men...what was their problem?

"Come on, Jack," said Brass, back in the interrogation room. "You know the law. You'd get done for assault, if you'd just called it in then. But now you're looking at first-degree murder."

Jack moved his cold eyes up to stare into Brass'.

"Doesn't seem worth it, does it?" said Brass, raising an eyebrow.

An officer walked over to Jack Harrow and stood him up. He slapped a pair of handcuffs on him behind his back and led him out of the interrogation room. Jim followed, pushing in Jack's chair as he went.

Catherine and Warrick walked out of the observing room and out into the hallway. A few moments later, Brass came around the corner to meet them.

"What do you think?" said Warrick.

"He's going down." Jim sounded sure of himself. This was always a good sign.

"We've got his prints on the gun and the knife, Harry Norton's blood on his shirt, GSR on the same shirt...it all fits together," Catherine pointed out.

"Good day's work, I think," said Jim. "Now, it's ten o'clock, so I'm heading home."

"See you," said Warrick as Jim left down the hallway. He turned to Catherine. "Man, I'm bushed. I think I'm going to head out too."

"Right behind you," said Catherine. "Need a ride? I heard your car got totaled last week."

"Nah, I'll take a taxi, thanks," said Warrick.

"Alright. Night."

"Night."

---

Greg Sanders sat at his desk and massaged his temple. He looked at his luminous digital watch and sighed. It was ten o'clock. He'd been staring at a binder filled with rifles and ammunition, and comparing them to a bullet, trying to determine the weapon used in his case. He'd been doing so for an hour and a half now.

Greg was working a drive-by shooting case: someone had emptied a twelve-round clip into a small trailer, killing a married couple and their daughter inside. Aside from the victims, the case wasn't taking its toll on anyone more than Greg. Anyone could see he was overworked. It was almost impossible to track down the killer; the victims were out-of-towners...out-of-Nevada-ers, in fact. It seemed there was no motive for the crime.

"Ah, there you are, my pretty," said Greg to himself, as he matched the large bullet in his hand to a Winchester rifle. "Great, how many of those can there be in the world?"

There was a small knock on his doorframe. "Good to see you're working hard," said Gil Grissom, welcoming himself in. "You look like you're working a bit _too_ hard."

"Yeah, well, I had to find this gun or the case would've gone cold," said Greg.

"Isn't Sarah helping you?"

"Yeah, but I told her she could go. I said I'd finish up tonight myself."

"Greg, you can't do this yourself. Listen, clean up and go home."

"I'm just trying to be perfect."

"Excuse me?"

"You once said that you loved bugs because they were perfect, because they always did their jobs. That's what I'm doing."

"You're not a bug, Greg. Goodnight." With that, Grissom excused himself from the room.

Greg sighed and shut the binder. Maybe Grissom was right...he hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. He had to go home. Get some rest. He could find the owner tomorrow...

So Greg put his stuff away and walked to the locker room. It was there that he met Nick Stokes, just shutting his locker door.

"Hey Nick," he greeted, putting his binder of notes in his locker.

"Hey, Greggo," said Nick friendlily. "How's the case going?"

"Not great," said Greg, taking out his coat. "I've got the murder weapon, but that gives me a couple million suspects. How about yours?"

"Just went cold," said Nick, a note of bitterness in his voice. "Guess you can't have everything."

"Hey, guys," came another voice. It was that of Archie Johnson, who had just entered.

"Hey, Archie, how you doing?" said Nick. "Heard you just solved your first case."

Archie couldn't help but smile. He had just been promoted to a field CSI, and had been working the case with Catherine and Warrick. "Yeah," he said, trying and failing to look indifferent.

"I knew it was that Pete fellow all along," said Greg, looking through his wallet.

"Actually, it was Jack Harrow," corrected Archie.

Nick laughed. "I'll see you guys tomorrow," he said, and walked out.

"Yeah," said Archie. "So, Greg, you want to go get a drink or something? Pick up a couple chicks?"

"Nah, I've got to get home," said Greg, shutting his wallet and putting it back in his jacket pocket. "I need some sleep. I'm free tomorrow night, though."

"Sounds good," said Archie. "I'll hold you to that."

"Alright," said Greg, walking out of the locker room. "See you later."

---

Sarah Sidle closed her eyes and tried to relax as the bus gently swayed back and forth. Suddenly the vehicle hit a speed bump and she was jolted back to her senses. God, she couldn't wait to get home and go to sleep...she felt bad about leaving Greg to identify the murder weapon, but it __

She heard a muffled electronic ringing, coming from her coat. Someone was calling her cell.

Sarah dug the phone from her inside pocket and flicked it open. "Yeah?" she said tiredly.

"Hey, Sarah, it's Greg," came the voice on the other end. "Just wanted to let you know I found our murder weapon."

"Oh, that's great, Greg," said Sarah, and yawned. "Thanks. I love you."

"You don't know how long I've been waiting to hear those words," said Greg, though he knew she wasn't being serious.

"Okay, I'll talk to you about it tomorrow," said Sarah. "Goodnight."

"Night."

Sarah closed her phone and placed it back inside her jacket. A few moments later, the bus came to a stop, and Sarah saw that they had reached her stop. So she stood up, and walked to the front.

She walked down the steps and out onto the sidewalk. After walking down the sidewalk, she came to her apartment building. She took the elevator up to her floor and got out, and walked down the hallway to her room. When she had entered, she threw her purse down on the counter and trudged groggily over to her answering machine. She pressed the button, and an electronic voice told her she had one new message.

There was a beep, and then a male voice came on.

"Hey, darling, hope you're getting this." Sarah started. She did not recognize the voice. "I always think it's fairer if the game knows they're being hunted. Just know, and tell all your friends back at CSI, you're all marked down. Only a matter of time. I'm going to get you back. All of you."

And then, there was another beep and silence fell.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Oh man, I was so close," said Nick, standing in the break room with Warrick. They both had a mug of coffee in their hand, just passing time until shift started. "All the evidence was pointing towards him. But the DA wouldn't accept it. Said it was all circumstantial."

"Damn," said Warrick. "I hear you."

"Ever happened to you?"

"Yeah. A couple times, actually. Damn DAs can get in the way so much."

"Tell me about it." Nick sat down and picked up a magazine.

"Hey, guys," said Grissom, entering the break room, his crossword puzzle in hand.

"Hey, Gris," said Warrick, refilling his coffee mug. "What's up?"

"Shift started five minutes ago," replied Grissom. "And unless that magazine's got something to do with your case, Nick, I don't think Catherine'll be too pleased to see you reading it."

"I haven't got a case," said Nick. "Went cold yesterday."

"Catherine and I just wrapped ours up," said Warrick.

"Hey, Grissom?" said Sarah, walking up to him in the hallway.

"Hi, Sarah," greeted Grissom, turning around. He looked back at Nick and Warrick for a second. "I'll tell Catherine you guys need something to do."

"Gris, could I talk to you for a second? Alone?"

---

"You're sure that's exactly what the message said?" asked Grissom, ten minutes later in his office. Sarah had just finished explaining the threat she had received on her answering machine.

"I listened to it five times over, and wrote it down," said Sarah, producing a piece of paper with the message written on it.

Grissom took the paper and read it over. "Look, do you know anyone who has a grudge against CSI? "

"Besides everyone who's ever been in or is in state prison?"

Grissom was silent for a moment. "Sarah, I think this is probably just a bluff. There's a moth called the Polyphemus – it's got a pair of markings on its wings that look like eyes, deceiving predators into thinking it's dangerous. This could be just like that."

"If you'd heard it, you'd know. I really think this is serious."

"Alright, I don't have anybody to spare, but I'll talk to Catherine about it. She can get Nick and Warrick to look into it. They don't have anything to do. They'll have to go to your apartment to hear the message."

"Yeah. You know where it is, right?"

"I can find out."

"Okay, thanks." She pulled her key out of her pocket and put it down on Grissom's desk. With that, Sarah left the room and went off to find Greg. Grissom took off his glasses and stared at the floor for a moment, thinking hard. Who would have it in for CSI? Assuming, of course, this wasn't just a prank.

Grissom opened his laptop and went to the CSIs' profiles. He typed in 'Sidle' and waited. Barely a second later, Sarah's page had come up, and Grissom had scribbled down her address. He shut his computer, put his glasses back on, and walked out the door.

---

When she reached the break room, Catherine simply walked in and placed Sarah's address and key on the table (Grissom had delivered them to her along with the full story a few minutes earlier). "I heard you guys need something to do."

Nick took the notepaper that Catherine had put down and read it. "Whose address is this?"

"Sarah's. She got a threat from an unknown caller on her answering machine, saying that whoever it was is hunting CSI."

"Sounds like a hoax to me," said Warrick.

"Yeah, but not to Sarah, apparently. You guys need to go over there and see if you can trace the call."

"Sure." Warrick took his coat from the back of a chair and pulled it over his shoulders. "You've got a truck, right, Nick?"

"Yeah, I can get us there. Let's go."

---

Warrick inserted Sarah's gold key into her apartment door handle and turned it. There was a small click from inside and he opened the door with ease. He pulled the key out and he and Nick entered inside.

"Not too shabby," commented Warrick as he entered.

"Kind of small, though," said Nick, shutting the door behind him. "So, we're just supposed to listen to this threat and trace the call?"

"Guess so," said Warrick. "Not much else we can do." He strode over to the answering machine and pressed the button. The threat repeated itself.

"Hey, darling, hope you're getting this. I always think it's fairer if the game knows they're being hunted. Just know, and tell all your friends back at CSI, you're all marked down. Only a matter of time. I'm going to get you back. All of you."

"Well, he sounds convincing enough."

"D'you think it's real?" asked Nick.

"I dunno. Guy could be an actor. He might be used to doing a threatening sort of voice."

"But why would an actor target CSI? Do we know any?"

"Well, I don't, that's for sure."

"Neither do I. So how are we going to figure out where the call came from? Her machine doesn't have call display."

"She got the call at seven eighteen, right?"

"Right, I see where you're going. Just call up the operator and find out where the call to this apartment at seven eighteen last night came from."

"Exactly." Warrick picked up Sarah's cordless phone and held down the zero button.

"Operator."

"Hi, yes, could you please trace the call received at this apartment at seven eighteen last night?"

"One moment, please." A few seconds later, the female voice said, "The call came from 555-8669, the residence of Tony Sherman."

"Thank you," said Warrick, and hung up. "Tony Sherman, 555-8669."

"Should we call him up?"

"No, then he'll know we're on his trail. Check Sarah's phonebook, then we'll get his address and head back to CSI."

---

Warrick and Nick, accompanied by Captain Brass, walked up Tony Sherman's gravel driveway to his bungalow. His house was located in the Toiyabe forest, at the end of a road which led off the Toiyabe trail.

"Careful," said Brass. "If this guy's serious he might try and take us out."

"Yeah," said Warrick, "I'm ready."

"Man, who the hell lives all the way out here?" said Nick.

"Someone who doesn't want to get caught making threats to the government," said Brass. He reached the white wooden door and knocked on it loudly.

"Who's there?" came a voice from inside.

"Las Vegas Police," answered Brass. "We'd like to talk to you." A few moments later, the door opened and a black man in his mid twenties came into the doorframe.

"Hello, officer, how can I help you?" he asked.

"I'm Captain Jim Brass," he said. "This is Warrick Brown and Nick Stokes, Las Vegas Crime Lab. We're here to ask you a few questions."

"Shoot."

"Did you place a phone call to 555-7272 at about twenty after seven last night?" asked Nick.

"No, I was out to dinner with my fiancée. I've never heard of that number, anyway."

"Did you make any other phone calls last night?" said Warrick.

"My cell phone died on me half way to her house, so no."

"Can anyone confirm you were out last night?" asked Nick.

"Yeah, Liz could tell you all about it. My fiancée," he added, seeing the looks on Brass', Nick's, and Warrick's faces.

"Can we have her address?" asked Warrick.

"Yeah, certainly," said Tony. "It's room eighteen of the Tropicana."

"Thanks," said Nick, writing it down. "Does Liz have a last name?"

"Yeah, it's Liz Novia."

"Okay."

"So, did you notice any disturbances here yesterday?" asked Warrick.

"None at all. People don't come round that often, so I've got a pretty quiet life. Yesterday wasn't any different."

"Is there any damage to your house? Specifically, doors and windows?"

"No. Why, do you think someone broke into my house?"

"We have reason to believe so," said Nick.

"Well, if they did, they didn't steal anything. Nothing in here worth taking, anyway."

Brass was examining Tony's hands intently. "Hey, Mr Sherman, you wouldn't mind holding out your hands for us, would you? Palms up."

Tony put his hands out and flipped them over. The right palm was raw red and shiny. It was burned. Fresh.

"That's a nasty burn you've got there," said Warrick.

"Yeah, I made myself a pizza for dinner last night and put my hand down on the baking sheet."

"Bet that smarts," said Nick.

"Hey, listen, do you mind if we have a look around inside?" said Brass.

Tony's trusting and helpful expression turned to one of suspicion. "Why?"

"We'd just like to poke around a bit," said Brass. "We traced a threatening phone call to this residence, and we'd like to have a look at your phone."

Tony continued to look at the three men suspiciously.

"No, sorry," he said curtly. "Goodbye, officer." With that he shut the door.

"Well, did that look like a guilty conscience to you or what?" said Nick, as they walked back down the gravel driveway.

"He didn't sound anything like the voice on Sarah's machine," said Warrick. "I don't think we've got enough evidence to hold him."

"Maybe not to hold him," said Brass, "but we might be able to get a warrant."

"On the basis of a phone call?" said Nick. "Someone could have broken in to use the phone."

"No, I'm not talking about that," said Brass. "He lied to us. In the same five minutes, he told us that he'd gone out to dinner with his fiancée and that he'd made himself a pizza for dinner last night. He's covering something up. Add that to the threat from that residence, we should be able to get a warrant."

"Let's go sort it out," said Nick.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey everybody. Thanks for reviewing! Glad you like my story. Also glad everyone's so enthusiastic about having Archie as a CSI.

---

B U Chapter 3 /B /U 

A black CSI Tahoe rumbled into the parking lot of the Tropicana hotel. After spending about five minutes searching for an empty space, it pulled into one furthest away from the door. The engine died down, and from the vehicle disembarked Brass, Nick, and Warrick.

"Which room was it?" said Warrick, shutting the passenger door.

"Eighteen," said Brass. He pressed the rubber bottom on his remote and the truck lock with a small beep.

"Liz Novia," finished Nick. "We're not going to need our kits, are we?"

"No, we're just talking to her," said Brass. "We have to see if her fiancé's alibi checks out."

"Then we head back over to his place?" said Nick.

"Exactly," confirmed Brass.

Ten minutes later, they had reached Room Eighteen. Brass knocked on the wooden door. A few seconds later, it swung open to reveal an attractive Hispanic woman standing in the frame. She had dark, shoulder-length hair with almond-coloured streaks, and was wearing a blue tank-top and tight black shorts.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"I'm Captain Jim Brass, from the LVPD," said Brass.

"Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown, crime lab," said Nick.

"Can I help you with anything, officer?" she asked, then turned her eyes on Nick. "Or I you /I with anything?" she flirted. Nick simply smiled back.

"Hey, don't you have a fiancé?" asked Warrick, somewhat impatiently.

"Oh come on, Hendrix, I'm just kidding," she said friendlily.

"Yeah well, don't; crime's no joke," said Warrick.

"So, what's this all about?" she asked Brass.

"We'd like to ask you a couple questions about your fiancé, actually," said Brass.

"Sure."

"Okay. First question: did you and your fiancé go out for dinner together the night before last? Somewhere around 7.00?"

"Yeah, he picked me up at around ten after seven. I don't know what time he actually left, though. I'm not sure how long it takes to get from his place to here."

"Thanks. Second question: where did you lovebirds go?"

She uttered a little giggle at Brass's remark. "We went to the Buccaneer Bay Restaurant. It's a favourite of ours. We go there lots. I don't know how Tony manages to afford it all the time."

"Do you know what Tony does for a living?"

"Of course. He's a used car salesman."

"How often does he take you out to this place?"

"Around twice a week or so."

"Thanks. Might be seeing you later," said Brass, putting away his pen and notebook.

"I hope so," she said, giving Nick a coy look. She shut the door and the three men began to walk down the hallway.

"I like her," said Nick as they reached the elevator.

"That was obvious," said Warrick. "You couldn't take your eyes off her. She didn't seem to be able to take her eyes off I you /I , either. Kept glancing back at you the entire conversation."

"Man, what's wrong with you?" said Nick incredulously, as the doors opened, though it was clear. Warrick just couldn't stand that Nick seemed to attract so many women.

"Alright, stop fighting, children," said Brass, stepping between them. "Right, now we're going back to Tony Sherman's."

"His alibi checked out, though," said Warrick.

"Yes, but we have our warrant now," Brass pointed out, "so we can have a look at his phone. And he's obviously hiding something, if he lied to us about how he burned his hand."

"Right, good thought," said Nick.

With that, they all loaded into the Tahoe and drove off to Tony Sherman's house.

---

I Knock knock /I . Brass rapped his knuckles on Tony's front door. As if on cue, the door flew open and there stood Tony, brandishing a baseball bat.

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy," said Brass, ducking in spite of him not actually taking a swing.

"Oh, it's you guys again," said Tony, lowering the bat. "What do you want?"

The cordial manner with which he had greeted them yesterday had completely vanished. He now looked upon them with a wary eye and a frown.

"Hey, Mr Sherman, we were wondering if we could possibly talk to you inside," said Nick.

"I told you no yesterday, and I'm telling you no again," said Tony. "Good afternoon."

Brass stuck his foot out so that Tony could not shut the door. "Well, that's too bad, because we have a warrant," he said, holding up the official sheet of paper. "We can do this here, or downtown." Tony snatched it from him and read it, before conceding defeat and opening the door wide. Brass, Warrick, and Nick all welcomed themselves in.

"Right, where shall we do this?" said Brass. "Living room looks good."

As they all walked towards the living room, Warrick sniffed at the air. Something smelled really funny in there...

Once they reached the living room, they all took separate seats (except Brass, who remained standing). Warrick and Nick sat on suede armchairs on either side of the sofa, and Tony sat down on the sofa himself.

"I'm going to cut to the chase, Mr Sherman," said Brass. "What are you hiding?"

Tony was dumbfounded. He said nothing.

"I'm not hiding anything," he said.

"Come on. You refused us entry twice. You don't refuse the police entry unless you're hiding something."

"What would I have to hide?"

"You tell me." He looked at Tony warningly for a few moments before saying, "Does anyone else use your phone?"

"No. I hardly ever have visitors."

"I'll print it," said Nick, getting up. "Where's the phone?"

Tony pointed to the kitchen. "Just don't make any long-distance calls."

Nick left.

"Hey, Mr Sherman, do you mind me asking what that smell is?" asked Warrick after a few seconds.

"I don't know what that is," said Tony. "It only started this morning."

"Smells like ammonia," said Warrick. "Did you spill any recently?"

At that moment, Nick returned. "Guys, you might want to see this."

Nick led Brass and Warrick into the kitchen, but instead of showing them the phone, led them down the hall to the left. The smell was getting stronger and stronger.

"Where are we – " started Warrick, but it was soon very clear. Nick opened the second door on the right in the hallway, and a blast of the headache-inducing odour greeted them from the entrance to the basement. Nick led them down the steps and they found out what was making the smell.

"A meth lab," said Brass. Workbenches lined the walls, the tops of which held all sorts of contraptions obviously devoted to making crystal meth. Nothing was switched on, but the smell still lingered.

"If we can't get him for stalking Sara, we can get him for this," said Warrick. Tony chose that moment to walk down into the basement behind them, and leaned up against the concrete wall in acceptance of his fate.

"Nick, d'you want to go finish printing the phone?" As Nick left, Brass turned to face Tony. "Well, Mr Sherman, stand up."

As though just not caring anymore, Tony stood and put his hands behind his back. Brass extracted a set of handcuffs from his coat and slapped them on Tony's wrists.

"Mr Sherman, you are under arrest."

---

Back at CSI, Grissom sat in the break room, enjoying a nice lunch of Chinese food. He was flipping through an insect encyclopedia, reading up on the family I Hymenoptera /I . He had just turned to the page on the Thread-Waisted Wasp, when Nick and Warrick entered. They were carrying Subway bags.

"Hey, Gris," said Warrick, sitting down and opening his doggy bag.

"Hey guys," said Grissom. "What's the news?"

"Well, we haven't got Mr Sherman for stalking Sara," said Nick, "but we found a meth lab in his house. He's in lockup now. I also discovered a little bit of something in his phone, but there were no prints on it."

"What was it?"

"I think it's potato chip," said Nick. "I sent it to Hodges to see if he can get DNA off it."

"Good work," said Grissom. "Sara'll be pleased."

"Just don't let Sara get near the guy if we find him," said Warrick.


	4. Chapter 4

I The bastards...the filthy bastards...

How could they do it? How could they let the killer get away...if it had been /I their I sister who had been murdered, they'd have been working round the clock to figure it out. But instead they let it go cold, and the murderer escapes...

It was the dark of a summer Las Vegas night. Rain pelted down upon the neon-lit streets, capturing the vibrant colours and making it look as though drops of liquid fire were plummeting from the night sky. Cars roared down the roads, ripping through the half-inch-deep water that coated them and spraying it on the sidewalks.

A leather jacket wrapped tightly around me, I made my way from the Rampart casino towards home. My hair, saturated with frigid water, clung to my numb face. Water had leaked inside my jacket, sending a chill down my entire body. As if this was not enough, a car shot past and sprayed me with another shower. Cursing hoarsely under my breath, I continued to struggle towards home...

Suddenly, I heard it: two angry voices rang out from the dark alleyway I was walking past. My head swung to the side to see a man, his face hidden by shadows, shouting his lungs out at a woman before him. She was not giving up without a fight though, returning the shouting with equal ferocity. As a car headlight fell upon the woman's features, I knew who it was.

My little sister Lily.

She was looking rather battered, with a black eye and a minute trickle of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. She had been stripped to her lilac bra and panties. It sounded as though she would not submit to something her assailant wanted.

I was about to step in and intervene when I heard the metallic click. I stopped in my tracks as he pulled out a pistol. Perhaps if I hadn't stopped, he wouldn't have done it...but then a shot rang out and a flash of light filled the shadowy alley. The smell of gunpowder reached my nostrils as Lily slumped to the ground, bleeding from a bullet-hole in her stomach.

I roared in anger and ran toward the murderer, but he merely pointed his weapon at me and pulled the trigger. But the gun did not fire; it had jammed. He cursed loudly and disappeared into the shadows.

I was ten years old. At ten years, I was scarred with a memory that still gives me nightmares to this day.

But now I have my opportunity for revenge. I've found a friend. One who can sympathize with me. And I can use him to my advantage. To get back at the bastards who let Lily's murder go cold...

They are going to pay. Perhaps, if they find out what it is like to lose someone close to them, they might see things in a better light. See things my way...

And if not, the persuasion will continue until they do.

A sharp sound reaches my ears, that of knuckles upon hard wood. "It's open," I say without taking my eyes from the sharp bowie in my gloved hands. Well, it's not really open, but my meaning gets across.

The door slowly swings open and in enters my faithful servant. He is masked, and also wears a pair of black leather gloves. "You said tonight," he says.

"Yes, and my mind is made up," I say, my eyes still fixed upon the dagger. "Their first will die tonight."

"How shall it be done?"

I motion to the fearsome weapon in my hand. "Take it," I say, and he obeys. "His neck."

"Slit his throat."

"No, do not do that. Stab him in the side of his neck. It will hurt more."

"Tell me where," says my friend, pocketing the knife.

I look at him for the first time in our conversation. I smile, satisfied to know that my assassin is so eager to do his job, and tell him where to go. /I 

---

Archie's head bumped against the taxi window, waking him up with an unpleasant jolt.

"Sorry," grunted the driver, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "Speed bump."

"Thanks for the heads-up," said Archie grumpily, rubbing the back of his skull.

"You were asleep," said the driver. "Didn't want to wake you up.

I Yeah, whatever, /I thought Archie.

Suddenly the taxi lurched to a halt, and the CSI's kit toppled from the back seat of the taxi onto the floor. "Careful," he said, picking up the little briefcase and opening it to make sure nothing was damaged. "Delicate equipment."

"We're here," said the driver, taking no notice of what his passenger had said. "That'll be thirty bucks."

Archie dug a twenty and a ten out of his wallet and handed them to the cab driver, who snatched them and stuck them in his pocket without delay. "Have a good evening," he said without any sincerity, as Archie opened the door and disembarked. He didn't return the comment to the surly driver.

With that, he shut the door and began walking home towards his apartment. It was not the most pleasant of nights...the dark blue sky was stricken with grey clouds which threatened to unleash their precipitation at any moment. Archie would be glad to get back to his place, read some Popular Science, maybe watch the Discovery channel for a while...

As he neared the front door of his apartment building, Archie heard footsteps. He turned around, and looked about him. There was no one to be seen. How odd.

He turned and walked towards the door when the attack happened. A heavy weight smashed into Archie's left, causing him to drop his kit and fall over onto his right side. He felt a searing pain shoot through his arm. He was sure he had not only scraped the skin right off it, but broken it as well.

As Archie flipped himself onto his back, he saw his attacker begin his next move. He hardly had time to register before the assailant had leapt upon his chest and winded him completely. He drew a vicious bowie knife from a sheath on his belt and held it high, holding Archie's right arm down with his other hand.

"Help!"

The knife was thrust into his right forearm, then lacerated his chest, causing Archie to scream with pain. The attacker reared up for the final blow.

Archie did the only thing he could do. He grabbed the attacker's knife arm with his left hand and tried to push him away with his feet. But he was much stronger than Archie was, and the young CSI could feel himself being overpowered. The dagger was getting closer and closer to his neck...

"Hey!" A voice pierced the night, and both Archie and his assailant's heads snapped upwards. A woman's head was protruding from a window on the second floor, observing the scene with a terrified look on her face.

Without another second's hesitation, the attacker sliced Archie's calf and was gone. Archie screamed as the knife pierced his flesh, and then pushed himself up into a sitting position with his uninjured arm and just caught a glimpse of the shadows lighting up his heels before he vanished into the darkness.

Suddenly, the woman who had witnessed the attack burst out the apartment door.

"I've called the police and ambulance," she said as she reached Archie, who noticed despite his pain that she was very attractive.

Five minutes later, sirens were heard and a few minutes after that several police cars and an ambulance arrived on the scene. Jim Brass disembarked from one of the squad cars and rushed over to where Archie lay.

"He's losing blood fast!" shouted Brass, and a pair of paramedics leapt out the ambulance's back doors with a stretcher. Archie was not only losing blood, he was losing consciousness as well. From both bleeding out and the shock, he was starting to black out.

The last thing he remembered of that night was being hoisted off the ground onto the stretcher before everything went black and silent.


	5. Chapter 5

Archie lay, unconscious, under the paper white sheet of the rickety hospital bed. An ECG was hooked up to his chest, chirping a stream of metallic beeps at a steady pace to represent his heartbeat. There was an IV hooked up to his right arm, injecting saline into his system. His face was contorted in an expression of fright and misery in his troubled sleep.

By the door out of room 403 of the hospital were two men. One was a dark-skinned, grim-faced doctor who looked to have seen too many deaths to avoid an early retirement. The other was none other than Gil Grissom, stoically watching over his friend with the air of a father watching his son.

"He's lost a great deal of blood, has two cracked ribs, and is suffering from shock," said the doctor, reading from his clipboard.

"Is he going to be okay?" asked Grissom, keeping his eyes upon Archie.

"He will have to spend a few weeks in hospital, and when he is released he will have to take some time off work," said the doctor. "But he should make a full recovery."

Grissom nodded soberly. At least he would be okay...he hadn't even been a CSI for three weeks. Already he had been in the emergency room and hooked up to an IV and ECG. But he knew they were lucky. They had had worse.

"He lost two point five litres of blood," said the doctor. "He'll have to have a transfusion."

"Can you tell me I exactly /I how long it'll take before he's back at work?" asked Grissom.

"He'll probably spend two weeks in hospital, and will have to take about that time off work once he's out," replied the doctor. "So about four weeks in total."

"Thank you, doctor," said Grissom. Then, leaving behind his very typical air of mystery, left the room and shut the door behind him.

---

There was no word to describe the atmosphere in the CSI conference room but 'tense'. Samuel Johnson could not have thought of a better one. 'Bleak' and 'frightened' were high on the least, but none made it past 'tense'. As was human nature, everyone feared the worst.

Catherine, Nick, Sara, Greg, and Brass all sat around the long table. Warrick and Dr Al Robbins were standing, and even Conrad Ecklie had made an appearance. Brass twiddled his thumbs. Sara bit her tongue, thinking hard. Nick's arms were crossed, in deep thought as well. Greg chewed nervously on his nails. Warrick paced near the door, and Catherine fiddled with a pen. Robbins leaned on the table with his hands. Ecklie was the only one who seemed remotely at ease, leaning against the doorframe.

I What a pig, /I thought Catherine, her thoughts directed at Ecklie. One of their own was in near critical condition, how could he be so calm? Did he even care?

Warrick ran his hands through his bushy hair. "Where the hell is he?" he said rhetorically, checking his watch.

They were all waiting for Grissom to return. They anxiously anticipated his word on Archie's condition.

"He'll be back soon," Catherine assured Warrick. "Grissom never misses a meeting."

"Doesn't mind being late, though, does he?" said Ecklie nastily. Sara took enough time off her thinking to shoot him an extremely dirty look. If there were two emotions the CSIs shared right now, they were concern for Archie and hatred of Ecklie (everyone except the latter, in any case).

"Well, it's true, isn't it?" he said, having noticed Sara's look. "I mean, he called this meeting, and it's already a half hour into it, and he's the only one who hasn't shown. Wouldn't you call that late?"

"Hey, listen, why don't you just shut the hell up?" barked Warrick suddenly. He couldn't restrain it. But Catherine agreed with him so much she didn't even bother to reprimand him. Seeing this, Nick piped up as well.

"Yeah man, he's also the only one who bothered to go and see Archie," he added fiercely. "I'm guessing the only reason I you're /I even here is because you have to make a good impression."

"That's not true," said Ecklie calmly, though he was taken aback at the abuse. "I arrived out of obligation to my duty to a lesser CSI."

"A 'lesser CSI'?" said Catherine, disgusted.

"You couldn't care less about whether Archie lives or dies," said Warrick, also appalled.

Ecklie did not reply to Warrick's accusation, but simply checked his watch.

Greg eagerly desired to join in the Ecklie-bashing, but he was relatively new himself and didn't really want to get on the bad side of someone so high up. Robbins said nothing in accordance with his nature, but simply shook his head and muttered under his breath, "No wonder I prefer the dead."

"Take it easy, Rick," said Brass. "He will be here."

The only person who wasn't really paying attention to this whole conversation was Sara. She had spared a moment to glare at Ecklie, but then had returned to her thoughts. So, did this mean that...

At that moment the door handle turned and the door slowly opened. The shadowy form of Gil Grissom entered, and shut the door behind him. He looked grim. All eyes trained upon him as he walked to the head of the long, sleek table and sat himself down. They was dying to hear the news of Archie's fate...

Everyone was relieved, but edgy, when Greg finally broke the awkward silence. "So...how's Archie, Gris?"

Grissom turned his serious eyes upward from his hands to look at Greg with a stern look. For a moment, the young CSI thought he was going to be told to be quiet, but then Grissom gave him a small smile. He opened his mouth to speak.

Everyone held their breath.

"The doctors say he should make a full recovery in a matter of weeks," reported Grissom. "He'll be in hospital for two, and then off work for another two, but he's going to be fine."

There was an audible sigh of relief from everyone in the room that sounded like a jet intake starting up. He would be okay...

I That was too close, /I thought Nick, staring at the table.

"It'll take a month before he's back at work?" asked Ecklie, the only one who hadn't exhaled a good deal of carbon dioxide into the air at Grissom's news. He merely seemed concerned that they would have slightly less manpower than before.

"Don't be I too /I worried about him, Ecklie," said Catherine sarcastically.

"Very well, I've heard what I came to hear," said the dayshift supervisor, and without so much as a 'toodle-oo', left the room.

"Scum bucket," growled Warrick, shaking his head.

"Okay, we need to get some people on that crime scene," said Grissom. "Greg, Sara, you guys and I will do that."

"We're already on a case," said Greg.

"You're on a new one now," said Grissom. "Catherine, Warrick, Nick, any chance you guys could interrogate Mr Sherman. I think he may still have some information."

"You got it," said Nick, standing.

"And have a look around his house," Grissom added.

"Yep," said Warrick, doing likewise.

"And if you find anything – "

"Are you in charge of my group, or am I?" asked Catherine, half-jokingly.

Grissom gave a small smile. "Sorry."

---

Catherine was the first one inside the house, followed by Nick and then Warrick.

"I'll take the living room," suggested Warrick.

"I'll finish what I was doing last time - printing the phone," said Nick. "Then I'll search the kitchen."

"Great, I'll check his bedroom," said Catherine. "If you find a weapon that could have been used, holler."

"Got it," said Warrick.

For the next while, they worked tirelessly to see if they could find any trace of evidence that would prove Sherman had something to do with it. He couldn't have physically done it, because he was in lockup at the time. But all the same, he could have arranged it.

Nick sprayed each knife he found in the kitchen with Luminol and hit the lights. There was blood on several, but as they were kitchen knives this was understandable. Still, wouldn't hurt to have them swabbed back at the lab.

In the living room, Warrick was having little luck. He could not find anything that might have been used to attack Archie anywhere. He was about to stop searching, when he noticed something. On the windowsill there were a few little round, dark marks. Warrick looked closer, hoping, and his hopes were fulfilled – they were fingerprints. He quickly collected them. Someone could have climbed through the window to get inside.

When they were all finished working (having searched the rest of the house, as well), they assembled by the front door.

"I collected some kitchen knives," said Nick. "They've got blood on them. I don't know if it's human or animal blood, but we'll find out soon."

"I found some prints on the windowsill in the living room," Warrick reported. "I'm guessing the perp could have gotten in through the window."

"I didn't get anything," said Catherine. "Or, anything of interest anyway."

"Well, let's get what we've got to analysis," said Nick. "Maybe they can get us a lead."


	6. Chapter 6

Grissom, Sara, and Greg approached the place where Archie was discovered. However, it was now high noon and the whole crime scene was bathed in the sun, giving them more than enough light to work with. Grissom and Greg went under the tape, while Sara stepped over, and the three of them surveyed the scene.

"Has anyone touched anything?" Grissom asked Logan, who was overlooking the scene.

"Nothing," answered Logan. "All yours."

"Good," answered Grissom, opening his kit. Sara and Greg did the same.

The scene was not pretty. There was a large pool of dried blood where Archie had bled out. There was a spray pattern going perpendicular away from the pool, and a smear parallel to it.

"Arterial spray," said Sara, looking at the spatter.

"Must have hit the artery in his leg," added Greg.

"And this is where he sat bleeding," said Grissom, looking at the pool. "So what's the smear?"

"If Archie struggled around, he might have dragged his leg across that spot," suggested Greg.

"There's no way he could have brought his leg round all the way back there," Sara pointed out. "Unless he turned around."

"But there are no droplets from the pool to the smear," said Grissom.

They put a marker on each bloodstain, and Sara photographed them while Greg and Grissom sniffed around for more evidence.

"Hey, look at this," said Grissom, pointing to a trail of small blood droplets leading away from the scene.

"What do you think?" said Sara. "Run-off from the weapon?"

"Probably," said Grissom, putting down a marker for every droplet. "But the trail stops here, so it's probably not going to get us far."

"Well, we know he went this way," said Sara. "Maybe we can find a weapon."

Grissom was about to stand up after putting down the last marker, when he noticed a spot off to the side, which looked as though the drop was in the process of flying to the right.

"We just might," said Grissom distantly, as he went to the bushes on the side of the road and started rummaging through them. A few moments later, a small, grim smile appeared on his face.

"Find something?" asked Sara, leaning in.

"Jackpot," remarked Grissom, standing aside to give Sara a look. And indeed it was.

Lying there, in the grass, a layer of dried blood darkening it to the hilt, was a Japanese tanto.

"Bag it," Grissom told Sara. "I'm going to see how Greg's doing."

Grissom walked over to where Greg was examining something on the apartment building steps. "What have you got, Greg?"

"Bloody footprint," said Greg, putting a marker down on it. "But I dunno if it's our killer's, or if the witness who broke up the fight stepped in the pool."

He took a photo of it.

"I'll figure out what kind of shoes that belongs to when we get back to the lab," said Greg, standing to face Grissom.

"Good work," said Grissom. "Officer Logan."

"Yeah?" said the policeman, approaching Grissom.

"You and Greg go inside and talk to the woman who saw Archie get attacked," he said. "Do you know who it is?"

"Yeah, one Sheila Keston," said Logan.

"Good," said Grissom. "Go see what you can get from her."

Greg and officer Logan entered the apartment building. Sheila Keston was standing a short ways away, pacing and chewing her fingernails. She looked very anxious about the whole situation.

"Excuse me, Ms Keston," said Logan as they approached her. "I'm Officer Logan, and this is Greg Sanders from the Las Vegas crime lab. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Okay," said Sheila, her voice shaky.

"Tell me exactly what you saw last night, Ms Keston," said Greg, taking out a notepad.

"You can call me Sheila," she said, before starting. "Well, I had just gotten undressed for a shower when I heard someone shouting and screaming outside. I went to the window and looked out, and saw a Korean-looking guy pinned to the ground. The guy holding him down was trying to slash him up with a big knife. So I shouted at them, and the attacker ran off. I got my bathrobe on, called the police, and came running out. A few minutes later, the police arrived."

"Could you see what the assailant looked like?" asked Greg.

"No, his face was covered."

"Did you notice anything physically about him?"

"Well, he looked like he was in good shape. He was about the same height as Officer Loki here."

"Logan," the officer corrected.

"Did you hear him speak?" asked Greg.

"No, he didn't say anything. Just looked up, stabbed him, and took off."

"Thanks," said Greg. "You've been very helpful."

Greg went outside and reported to Grissom what Sheila had told him.

"Keep her under surveillance," said Grissom. "You and Sara get back to the lab and see if you can match the blood on that knife, and find out what kind of shoeprint that is."

"What about you?" said Greg.

"Don't complicate things, just go back to the lab."

---

"What have you got for me?" said Grissom, striding into the room where Sara and Greg were working. They were both looking through a book of shoeprints, comparing them to the footprint photograph.

"Nothing yet," said Sara, flipping the page.

"What about the blood on the knife?"

"Waiting for a result from DNA," said Greg. "And we ran the fingerprints on the hilt through AFIS. They are a match to Dustin Orwell, a chef at the Buccaneer Bay restaurant."

"Sara, come with me," said Grissom. Sara accepted without hesitation; shoeprints wasn't the most emotionally stimulating job at the lab. But she did feel a small twinge of guilt at leaving Greg alone to do the boring stuff again.

"Where are we going?" asked Sara as she and Grissom walked down the hallway.

"The Buccaneer Bay restaurant," said Grissom. "I want to have a talk with Mr Orwell."

"Whoa, did I hear Buccaneer Bay restaurant?" said Warrick, who had just emerged from the break room.

"Is that important?" asked Grissom.

"Well, it's a connection," replied Warrick. "Tony Sherman took his fiancée, Liz Novia, to the Buccaneer Bay restaurant the day the threat was received. They were regulars there."

"If they were regulars there, Orwell could have gotten to know them well enough for them to have him over," speculated Sara. "He could have made the call when they weren't around."

"We shall see," said Grissom.


	7. Chapter 7

"Hey, Warrick, I ran the print through AFIS."

Warrick looked up from his coffee mug in the break room. Mia was standing in the doorway.

"Get a match?" he asked.

"Perfect match to Manfred Kirby. Arrested in '98 for aggravated assault. He works as a handyman."

---

"So exactly how do you know Tony Sherman?" It was Brass who asked the question. He, Nick, and Warrick were standing at the door of Mr Kirby's trailer, the above slouching against the frame.

"He asked me to do some work for him," said Manfred, in a gravelly voice that suggested he was a two packs-a-day man. He was in his early thirties, had unkempt sandy brown hair, and a square-ish face. His hands were thick and rough, trademark of someone of his profession.

"Mind if we ask what kind of work?" said Warrick.

"Handiwork," said Manfred sardonically, rolling his eyes at Warrick.

"Look, we can do this here, or we can go downtown," said Brass irritably.

"You haven't got anything to arrest me on," said Manfred.

"If we find out Tony didn't hire you, we can get you on breaking and entering," said Brass. "We found your fingerprints inside his house. I think it may be in your best interest to talk."

"Okay, fine," grumbled Manfred. "He asked me to come over and paint his living room. I went to his place three days ago and he wasn't in, and didn't leave a key or anything, so I had to go in through the window."

"It was open?" asked Nick.

"Wide open," said Manfred. "I dunno, he could have left it open for me."

"While you were there, did you see anyone else in the house?" asked Brass.

"No, I told you, he was out," said Manfred. "He left me a cheque, so he didn't have to be there."

"As in someone besides Tony," said Warrick.

"Didn't see no one," he answered. "Look, I went in, did my stuff, and left. That's all."

---

Grissom and Sara walked into the kitchen of the Buccaneer Bay Restaurant. It was a very hygienic, busy, and loud room, filled with the din of clashing plates, bustling waiters, and cursing chefs.

"Excuse me," said Grissom, stopping a young waitress. "Do you know a Dustin Orwell?"

"Yeah, he's just over there," replied the waitress, pointing a finger at a largish man a short distance away. He was frying a fillet of some sort of fish in a pan on his stove, dodging flecks of oil as they erupted from the sizzling pan at him.

"Thank you," replied Grissom, and he and Sara walked over to Mr Orwell.

"Dustin Orwell?" said Sara as they arrived next to him. He looked up from his work.

"Yes," he replied. "Can I help you?"

He had a layer of thin stubble the same hue as his dark, cropped hair. His eyes were green flecked with grey, and he had a single gold tooth.

"I'm Gil Grissom, and this is Sara Sidle," said Grissom. "We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab."

"Crime Lab?" repeated Dustin. "Is something the matter?" He then seemed to have a brainwave. "Is this about my knife?"

"Your knife?" said Sara.

"Yes, my tanto," he answered. "It went missing about a week or two ago. Has it turned up?"

"Would this be the one?" asked Grissom, showing him a photograph of the bloody knife.

"That's it!" said Dustin. "Why is there blood on it?"

"It may have been involved in an attempted murder," answered Grissom. "The only fingerprints on the hilt are yours."

"Whoa, you don't think I did that?" said Dustin, stunned. "I'm a collector. That piece is two hundred years old. I would never even think of actually using it."

"Well, is there anyone else who would have access to it?" asked Sara.

"Anyone who has been in my living room," said Dustin.

"Anyone recently?" said Sara.

"I have friends over all the time," said Dustin. "You might try Tony Sherman or Gaston Moreau."

This was interesting. Tony was a friend of the attack weapon's owner. Coincidence, or connection?

They had Tony in custody, however, and Grissom was interested in speaking to the other man, Gaston.

"Do you know where we could find M Moreau?" asked Grissom.

"Yeah, he's right over there," said Dustin, pointing a knobbly finger to the other side of the kitchen. Grissom looked to see a tall, lean man with short black hair. He was slicing some meat with expert skill.

Grissom and Sara walked over to question him.

"Bonjour," Grissom greeted, and Gaston turned his sea blue eyes to them.

"Can I help you?" he asked with a thin French accent.

"Gil Grissom, Sara Sidle," Grissom introduced. "Crime Lab."

"Oh yes?" he said interestedly, setting down his knife. "May I be of assistance?"

"We just wanted to ask you a few questions," said Grissom.

"Anything to help," said Gaston.

"Do you recognize this man?" asked Grissom, showing Gaston a photograph of Archie."

Gaston examined the photo closely, his eyes intense.

"Doesn't ring a bell; sorry," he replied.

"What about this knife?" He held up the same picture of the knife he had shown Dustin.

"The only knives I use are the ones you see here," he said, motioning towards his attractive collection of intricate blades.

"Very nice," said Grissom, examining a fruit knife. "The handle – bone, is it?"

"Elk antler," corrected Gaston. "A very rare set."

As Grissom and Gaston continued their banter, Sara bent down and examined the latter's shoe. Or rather, what was on it. She had spied it upon looking down for a moment, and was now taking a closer look.

Gaston seemed to notice this. "Usually, darling, women are more interested in my face than my shoes."

Sara looked up at him and gave him one of her trademark sardonic smiles. She did, however, have to admit, the guy was cute...but vain. She didn't like that.

"Sorry, I was actually inspecting what was on your shoe," answered Sara. She removed a swab and brushed the rust-coloured stain on it. After this she soaked the end of the swab in phenolphthalein and was pleased to see it turn a vibrant shade of red.

"What's that?" asked Gaston, as Sara stood up.

"You know, I like your shoes," said Sara. "Mind if I borrow them?"

"Now?"

"Well, you'd be staying with them, because I like you too."

"I have that effect on people," remarked Gaston, and winked at Sara.

"O'Riley?" Grissom summoned the Sergeant, who had come with them and was questioning a waitress. He immediately dismissed her and walked over to where the three of them were standing, handcuffs at the ready.

---

"I don't know anything about that."

Gaston was seated in the interrogation room. Grissom sat on the other side of the table, and Sara leaned against the wall. Grissom had just finished explaining Archie's attack and the threat on Sara's answering machine.

"Well, we matched the DNA from the blood on your shoes," said Sara, "to Archie's DNA."

"Archie?"

"Our friend," said Grissom.

"Gotcha. Carry on."

"So how do you explain that Archie's blood got on your shoes?"

"I have no idea. Wait – may I see the picture again?"

Grissom produced Archie's photograph and slid it across the slick surface of the table. Gaston lifted it and examined it intently, as though trying to remember something.

"Actually, I recognize this man."

Sara cocked her head, and Grissom raised his eyebrows, both in apprehension of an explanation.

"Would you care to tell us how?" asked Grissom.

"I met him at a club on the Strip. I was playing pool at the time, and I looked up to see him watching my girlfriend. I was walking over to tell him to back off when he actually started hitting on her. So I hit him. His blood must have gotten on my shoes then."

"Well, Archie never came in with any injuries," said Sara. "Are you sure it was him?"

"There are lots of guys who look like him," said Gaston. "But if it's his blood on my shoes, I guess it must have been him."

"But you didn't think of cleaning it off?"

"I didn't see it. I'm quite frankly surprised that you spotted it, actually. Blends in quite well."

"That still doesn't explain how he managed to come to work unscathed if you hit him hard enough to draw blood," said Grissom. "When did this happen?"

"About three weeks ago," answered Gaston.

Grissom blinked. He hadn't thought of that. He stood up, and drew Sara aside.

"Three weeks. You know what that means."

"Archie was on vacation then," said Sara, nodding. "He could have easily healed before he got back."

"What do you think?"

"I dunno...I kind of believe him, actually."

"We'll need more than his account. People lie. Evidence doesn't."

"But what do we have to hold him on?"

Grissom sighed. "Nothing."

---

"Mr Sherman," said Catherine, sitting down opposite the aforementioned in the interrogation room, "have you had your living room painted recently?"

Tony, once looking bright and alert, had changed significantly. His eyes were now dark and full of disdain. His nails were bitten down and he was breathing heavily.

"Just a couple days ago," replied Tony, in a low growl.

"Do you know a Manfred Kirby?" Catherine produced a photograph of the handyman.

"Yeah," Tony answered. "He's the guy that did the painting for me."

"When was that?" asked Catherine.

"Five days ago," said Tony.

"Did it take him a few days to do the job, or did he get it all done in one?"

"That day," answered Tony. "I wrote him a cheque and left it for him before I went out that morning."

"He didn't, then, have any reason to come back three days ago?"

"Nope. He was finished by then."

Catherine flicked out her cell phone and dialed a number. "Jim, it's Catherine. Listen, bring Kirby in. He's either a liar or a burglar."

An hour later, Brass sat in the adjacent interrogation room, with Manfred across from him. He was looking arrogant and contemptuous, as usual.

"So, which is it gonna be?" asked Brass.

"Huh?" replied Manfred. The tone of his voice gave furtherance to Brass' theory that he possessed only a rudimentary intellect.

"You're looking at one of two things," said Brass, holding up two fingers. "Either you've lied to us, which is obstruction of justice, or you entered Tony Sherman's house without his knowledge, which is breaking and entering. So which is it?"

Manfred folded his arms, leaned back, and snorted. "This is bullshit," he said. "I haven't done nothing illegal."

"Actually yeah, you've done one of those two," said Brass. "We have information from Tony Sherman which leads us to believe that you in fact painted his house five days ago, not three."

"Then Tony's lying," spat Manfred.

"We considered that," said Brass, "before coming in contact with your bank. They informed us that you deposited Mr Sherman's cheque not three days ago, but five."

"He paid me in advance."

"That's interesting. You've already informed us that he left a cheque for you on the day you did the work."

Manfred realized his mistake. It was too late. They were closing in on him...

"Which story are you going with?"

---

"Get anything from Kirby?" asked Catherine, meeting up with Brass in the hall while officers escorted the suspects to their cells.

"Not much," replied Brass. "He lawyered up near the end and refused to say more. But before that, I got a few statements from him. We know he's lying about something. He told me he got paid in advance, which refutes what he said when I talked to him at his trailer."

"It also contradicts Sherman's story," said Catherine.

"I'm starting to like Kirby for this whole thing."

"We don't have any physical evidence linking him to the attack," said Catherine. "All we've got is circumstantial."

"It's a start."

A few minute later, Catherine was walking through reception, when she heard a voice. "Excuse me?" It was a female voice. She turned, to see a darkish girl with streaked hair walking towards her. She looked concerned and confused

"Hi," said Catherine. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Liz Novia," she replied. "I'm Tony Sherman's fiancée."

"Ah..." said Catherine, sensing the advent of having to be the people person.

"He hasn't been returning my phone calls lately, and I know you guys talked to him...so I was just wondering if you knew anything about where he is?"

Catherine heaved a breath. "Miss Novia, I'm afraid I have some bad news..."

"Is he alright?"

"Yeah, but he's...well, we have him in custody right now."

"What? Why?"

"Perhaps we'd better talk in my office."

Once in the office, Catherine laid all the facts before Liz. The meth lab, the attack, Tony's suspected involvement. If Catherine thought Liz had looked concerned and confused before, it was nothing compared to how she looked now. She looked rather like Napoleon near the conclusion of Waterloo.

Catherine pitied her. She had been in too many troubled relationships herself to not do so. "I don't know what else to say but...I'm sorry."


	8. Chapter 8

Greg opened his locker door and extracted his jacket. He slipped both arms into the sleeves and pulled it on, leaving it unzipped. He straightened out the collar and brushed some dust off the right sleeve, then smoothed out his hair.

It was starting to get really hectic around here. Archie in hospital, death threats, shaky witnesses...it would be a relief to finally put the lid on the God-damn thing.

He shut the locker and picked up his bag, headed for the door. As he did so, it opened and Grissom welcomed himself in. Greg nodded.

"See you, Gris," he said.

"Good work today, Greg," he replied, and they walked past each other.

Throughout his journey to the exit, Greg encountered all the others, either on their way out themselves or headed for the locker room. They said their goodnights and Greg walked out into the fresh open air that was outside the lab.

---

_"You failed."_

My servant stands behind me. I cannot see his face, for my eyes are closed and I am turned away from him. But I can tell he maintains his grim, undaunted expression. An expression that proclaims no embarrassment or shame.

"I was interrupted," he answers. "He may yet be dead; I slashed his calf before leaving the scene."

"I have a mind to choose someone else," I say. "Someone who will not fail me."

"I will not this time," he says.

"You will persevere?"

"I will. I will not leave until I am sure the next one is dead."

I stand and open my eyes. I turn around and set them upon him, my assassin. He stands there, tall and proud, prepared to do my bidding.

"Very well. I will give you another chance."

He grins. He is pleased. He wants to help me. Good. He can do so. I give him a significant look and say, "Just one more."

With that, I tell him who and where.

"You understand?'

"Perfectly."

"By tonight, what will remain of Greg Sanders?"

He cocks an eyebrow. "A corpse."

---

Greg breathed in the cool outdoor air and began to walk through the parking lot. Being trapped in the lab for the greater part of the day had rather sharpened his appetite for fresh oxygen, so he was feeling a bit better. Of course, a bit of fresh oxygen wasn't enough to put a positive spin on one of his best friends being in hospital...in rough condition.

It helped, though.

Nick's truck pulled up next to Greg just as he was about to leave the parking lot.

"Hey, Greg, d'you need a ride?" he said, rolling down his window.

"Nah, it's OK, thanks, Nick," replied Greg.

"You sure? I don't mind giving you a lift home."

"I'll catch a bus. We live on opposite sides of town, anyway."

"Alright, I'll catch you later."

"Later."

Nick rolled up his window and his black truck pulled out of the parking lot. Greg watched it drive away and meld into the traffic, becoming one with the dark city. Greg blew out some air that rose in a humid mist in front of him before disappearing into the atmosphere. With that, he continued on.

Greg, hands in his pockets, walked down the dirty sidewalk towards the bus stop. It was only a short distance away. He was tired as hell, though...he'd be glad to get home and catch a few Z's. Well-deserved Z's.

A light rain began to fall. A few scattered drops sprinkled down, moistening Greg's spiky hair. Soon it began to become heavier, but not unbearably so. A drop ran down Greg's temple and irritated his cheek. He wiped it off, and seconds later arrived at the bus stop. Taking shelter from the rain, which was still steadily increasing, he checked his watch and the schedule. The next bus arrived in four minutes.

He sat down on the cold metal bench and waited. He exhaled another cloud of frost and leaned his head against the glass back wall. He was tired...

Suddenly something caught his attention that caused him to sit up suddenly, alert as a startled rabbit. A sound had penetrated the din of the city. It was a loud, sharp sound that was enough to startle anyone in his frame of mind.

A gunshot had just been fired.

Greg warily stood up, reaching for his own gun. There was a thin, tiny plume of smoke rising from the mouth of the alleyway directly across from him. The alley was dark. He didn't really want to go into it...

He gripped the handle of his sidearm firmly, and hopped across the street while there was a break in traffic.

"Las Vegas Crime Lab!" he shouted to a few pedestrians who were looking at him, startled at the gun in his hand.

He pulled his flashlight from his belt and switched it on as he approached the alley. Taking a deep breath, Greg turned the corner and shone the beam down it. There was nothing...just a dumpster.

Just a dumpster...or was it?

Greg cautiously held out his pistol before him and advanced into the shadowy alley. He took careful, quiet steps, trying to keep his cover as long as possible.

He reached the dumpster.

Greg made sure his gun was loaded. Steeling himself, he leapt round the side of the dumpster. He aimed the beam of the flashlight into the dim shadow of the corner. There was an intense look in his eye as he examined the area.

It was empty.

A shiver ran down Greg's spine. There was someone here. He knew it. There had to be. And that meant there was only one more place to look...

With the air of a man being led to steps of the guillotine, Greg stepped towards the dumpster. The container seemed to grin at him. It seemed to look at him in a way that tried to coax him into coming closer.

He faced it and placed a hand upon the black plastic lid. Drawing himself up, Greg tightened his grip on it and with all the strength he could muster, flung it open and pointed his gun into the dark abyss. He didn't even think about what he saw.

The figure flying from the darkness didn't let him.

It sprang from the dumpster and crashed full-on into Greg's chest, sending the two of them careening backwards. Greg was smashed into the wall behind him with the attacker's weight compressing him. As he made impact, he fired his gun, but the bullet ricocheted off a wall and fell harmlessly to the ground.

The assailant then took hold of Greg's shoulders and flung him to the ground. Overcome with shock, Greg could hardly defy the strength with which he was felled. The attacker drew out a long bowie and leaped into the air. As Greg hit the ground, however, he had sense enough to point his gun and pull off two shots.

The first bullet hit the wall again, sending off a dazzling display of sparks. The second, however, was more accurate and met its mark. It drilled into the attacker's left shoulder, sending out an explosion of blood that spattered all over Greg's face.

A scream broke from the attacker's masked face as he was shot, but while it was enough to affect extreme pain, it was not a killing blow. Before Greg could shoot again, though, he was pinned down, the attacker crouched upon his chest. Greg pointed his gun at his opponent's head, only to have his arm brought to the hard floor by his foe's foot.

The next few seconds lasted as long as a few seconds normally last. But to Greg, those seconds were a lifetime, and he was not likely to ever forget them.

The arm rose. It looked like the hand of triumph, silhouetted against the cloud-strewn sky. What light was provided by the moon glinted against the long blade. The attacker waited, savouring the moment, then with conviction and purpose thrust the knife downward.

Greg had never felt such pain in his life. The knife stuck into his right arm and hit bone. As Greg screamed, the assailant silenced him with a tight grip on his throat. He then reared up again and struck once more.

This time it slashed across Greg's chest. The wound was not deep, but burned and stung with agony all the same. Greg was beyond screaming now even if he had been able to. He was as helpless as a squirrel below the talons of a hawk.

And then the final hit came.

But this was not meant to inflict pain. This was meant to be the killing blow, the one that put the final nail in Greg's coffin. The knife pierced deep, plunging down into Greg's chest cavity. It severed a rib and God knew what organs. To top it off, the attacker twisted the blade about, opening the wound even wider, before yanking it out and making a great gash down to his abdomen. Blood sprayed up into his face and blossomed from the open wound.

As a final word, the faceless assassin took something from his pocket and dropped it on Greg's chest, before concealing the deadly weapon and disappearing into the city.

Greg remained in the alley, though. He lay, spread-eagled, upon the concrete ground, covered in blood. His pistol was still in his hand, but only held onto by the loose finger round the trigger. His blank eyes stared up at the sky...

But he did not see the clouds overhead. He saw nothing but blackness. Gradually the sound of Las Vegas faded out into silence. Greg could feel life leaving him...

_Well, if this is death, it's not so bad..._he was beginning to accept it..._no, I can't die yet..._he didn't want to die; he was too young...but the darkness was so welcoming..._it's so peaceful..._it would be just like falling asleep...

He was fading...fading...

Suddenly the clamour of the city returned to his ears, flooding his brain. His sight returned to him, though everything was blurred. He knew what to do.

He searched frantically in his breast pocket. He had to get his cell phone. It was his only hope...he could only pray that it hadn't been broken in the fight.

His shaking fingers found it. They felt the smooth, metal surface and pulled the device out. It wasn't broken. He flipped it open and weakly hit '4' on Speed Dial.

It rang once.

Twice.

I Come on, pick up... /I

Three times.

I Please... /I

Four.

"Come on!" he gasped aloud, and the ringing ceased. A voice came through, one that Greg had never been so relieved to hear in his life.

"Grissom."

"Help me...please..."

---

Dun-dun-DUN! What will happen to Greg? Will he survive? Find out next time! By the way, I'd like everyone's opinion on that chapter in especial. How was it? I'll update soon!


	9. Chapter 9

Hey, did everyone like the cliffhanger I left it at? Probably not, eh? I bet you all hate me. Well, that's what a suspense story is all about! Being left in suspense, I mean, not hating the author.

Anyway, let's get this show on the road.

---

"Hello?" said Grissom, furrowing the brow. He couldn't place the voice, partially because it was so mutilated with agony and partially because the signal was very crackly.

"Help me..."

Whoever it was, he was hurt. He was choking his words out with extreme difficulty, with a suggestion of blood in the throat. It sounded as though speech was as excruciating as it was difficult.

"Who is this?" asked Grissom.

The person on the other end paused to either vomit or spit out blood; Grissom couldn't tell which. He persevered.

"Who is this?" he asked again.

"It's me, Greg."

"Greg?" Grissom repeated, removing his glasses.

"I need help...now..."

"Greg, what's the matter?"

Greg paused again, once more to expel bodily fluid from the mouth. "I've been attacked..." he choked finally.

"Attacked? How?"

"Jumped me...knife...happened so fast..."

"How badly did he hurt you?" Grissom was getting more and more fearful by the second.

"Bad...think I'm...dying..."

Grissom pressed the phone hard to his ear. This was bad. Very bad. Much worse than he had thought.

"Greg, where are you?" asked Grissom. He went cold when Greg did not reply. "Greg! Where are you?" He barked the words, but out of concern, not anger.

There came a faint spluttering noise. Greg was still alive...but from the sound of it, just barely.

"Greg, for the love of God, please tell me where you are," said Grissom slowly, stressing every syllable.

"Alleyway...near bus stop..."

"What alleyway? Which bus stop?"

Then there was a clattering noise, as though Greg had dropped his cell phone. Grissom shot out of his chair and put one hand on his desk for support. Then there was a loud crunch. He could hear faint speaking on the other end.

"Help!" It was Greg, but there was a different note in his voice. No longer was it the fading, desperate stutter for help. This was a terrified, desperate cry for help. Grissom knew what had happened.

Greg's attacker had returned.

Grissom knew he mustn't speak, or he would alert the attacker. Instead, he blasted out of his office at full speed. He had to go and search for Greg. But he couldn't do it on his own, if the attacker was still there. He'd need some backup.

"Catherine!" Grissom shouted at the CSI who was proceeding down the hallway, on her way out. She turned around to see a panicked Grissom bolting towards her.

A panicked Grissom was not a good sign.

"Gil! What's the matter?" she asked.

"No time to explain," said Grissom breathlessly, catching up to her. "Greg's in trouble. We have to find him fast."

"Trouble? What sort of trouble?" said Catherine, as she ran with Grissom out the doors.

"Hey, Catherine, Gris, what's up?" It was Warrick. He was already in the parking lot. Seeing them in such a state, he had jogged up to them.

"Warrick, good, come with us," said Grissom. "Greg's dying. We have to find him."

"Dying?" repeated Warrick, staying with them as they ran out of the parking lot. "How?"

"He got attacked," said Grissom.

"Same guy who got Archie?" asked Catherine.

"It sounds like it," said Grissom.

"Son of a bitch!" cursed Catherine.

"OK, Greg said he was in an alley near a bus stop," said Grissom. "We'll go to the closest bus stop and search all the alleys near it."

Thirty seconds later, they had reached the closest bus stop to the headquarters. There were six alleyways within eyeshot.

"Warrick, you search those two!" said Grissom, pointing to the far left. "Catherine, the middle two. I'll take those ones. Keep your weapons at the ready. If you hear any gunshots, follow them."

"Got it!" said Catherine, and the three of them went their separate ways.

Grissom ran to the first alley he had selected and pointed his gun down it. He could see no one. As far as he could tell, the alley was completely empty but for a garbage can. Nevertheless, he proceeded down it, searching every nook and cranny.

Five alleys away, Warrick met with the same results. Except his was completely empty; not even a bin. A cat came bolting out of the shadowy corner, but besides that it was deserted.

"Come on, Greg, where are you...?" he snarled, shining his flashlight around.

Catherine, meanwhile, had abandoned the first alley she had searched and had now moved on to the second one. The only thing there was a dumpster.

But there was something else...as she scanned the ground and walls with her light, it became clear that there was blood everywhere. It was splattered all over the place. The sight was so chilling that she began to panic even more.

Then she noticed something. A faint bluish green glow was emanating from under the lid of the dumpster. From inside, Catherine could hear some sounds...like footsteps. But the sound was metallic, like it was coming from a phone.

A cell phone!

"I've found it!" Catherine screamed. "He's here! Greg! It's Catherine! You're going to be alright!"

She held her gun and flashlight in the same hand, and with the other hand flung open the dumpster with zeal.

What she found was not quite what she had expected.

At her discovery, Catherine's eyes welled up with tears. He was gone...

Grissom and Warrick rushed to her side and looked into the dumpster. As they looked upon what Catherine saw as well, their faces fell also.

The dumpster was empty. The only things inside of it were a half crushed cell phone, emitting the strange blue light, and a balled up piece of paper.

"Damn it!" Warrick yelled and stalked off towards the end of the alley.

"He's gone..." said Catherine.

Grissom pulled out his camera (which he kept on him at all times), and photographed the inside of the dumpster. He then took out a pair of latex gloves he had stuffed in his pocket earlier and put them on. He reached into the dumpster and took the crumpled ball of paper.

"What's that?" Catherine asked, as Grissom unfurled it.

Grissom read what was written on the paper, his mouth half open. "A message," he said, and showed it to Catherine.

Scrawled untidily on the page were the words 'Not what you were expecting, is it?'

---

Greg's eyes flickered open, but it made little difference. There was still complete blackness, wherever he looked. It was as though someone had switched off the moon, stars, and every light in the city.

Wherever he was, it was a cramped space. There was a strange, loud noise in the background, like a motor. He turned his head, only to painfully bash the back of it against the corner of something metal. He tried twisting to the side, but extreme pain shot through his chest, reminding him of his wounds.

He felt around with his left arm, the one he was not leaning on, and found a variety of objects. There was what felt like a duffel bag, something round and metal with rubber on the outside (which he was lying on), a plastic container of some sort, and something with a round handle. He held the grasped in his hand and lifted it up. It was very light, and smooth...

Greg realized he was holding the knife that had been used to attack him.

He dropped the knife quickly. It was too creepy to hold; it had been stuck in him several times, earlier. He searched around for anything else that might be stashed wherever he was, and found one other object. It had a square, plastic handle, and was heavier than the knife...

His thumb found a small rubber knob on the top, which he pushed. Instantly, yellowish light filled the space. He was holding a flashlight.

As soon as the light came on, he had deduced where he was. He had been stuffed in the trunk of a car. He was lying on a spare tire. The duffel bag was a First Aid kit, and the plastic container was a gas can.

His shirt had been removed; apparently, it seemed, to allow the abductor to affect First Aid on him. Probably with equipment from that very kit. But why would someone go to the trouble of stabbing him in the arm, then slashing and goring his chest just to treat him and put him in the trunk of a car?

Whoever performed the First Aid wasn't much of a surgeon, though. The tourniquet around his arm was unnecessary and far too tight. The slash had been dressed with a tight bandage round his chest. And the deep stab wound had merely been stuffed with gauze, which had soaked up all the blood.

Then it hit Greg. He had been treated to prevent blood staining the carpet of the trunk. If CSI had found this car, and the trunk was full of Greg's blood, they'd have their guy.

This perp knew how to leave a squeaky clean scene. He was good.

The car hit a bump, which caused Greg to bounce around and hit his head again. He swore with pain, but then saw the bright side. His head now hurt more than any of his other injuries, which probably meant they weren't going to be fatal.

But that still didn't change the fact that he was locked in the trunk of a car belonging to someone who had tried to murder him that very day, and who was most probably driving the car right then. These facts before him, he began to hyperventilate.

_Oh God no...I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die..._

Suddenly the car lurched to a halt, whacking Greg's head once more, and effectively giving him a serious case of headache. He waited with baited breath. What was going on...?

There was a clunk, and a chink of light shone under the door. The door then swung open, to reveal his attacker standing over him, looking down at him with a smug grin upon his face.

Greg recognized him.

"You!" he managed to shout, before he was slugged hard in the face and vision ceased to exist.

---

Back at the scene, Grissom, Catherine, and Warrick were searching for evidence. All idea of going home that night had passed right out of their minds. All that was important now was finding Greg.

Warrick took photos of the spatter. Grissom bagged what evidence they had. Catherine searched the area for any further clues. There had to be some. A crumpled piece of paper and a broken phone weren't much to go on.

"Hey Warrick," said Grissom, holding up the two evidence bags. "Get these to trace. See if you can get any prints off them."

"You got it," replied the investigator. He took the bags and handed his camera over. Without hesitation, he left the dark alley, bound for CSI.

"What have you got, Catherine?" asked Grissom.

"I found a strange leaf next to the dumpster, but nothing else," she replied. She scanned the ground with her flashlight. Finally, the beam fell upon something. "Wait, here's something. Bullet casing."

Grissom bent down and photographed it, then let Catherine scoop it into a paper envelope. "Nine millimeter. See if there are any more around here," he said.

The two of them searched around for any more.

A few minutes later, Grissom had recovered two flattened nine millimeter bullets. And Catherine had found two more casings.

"So, we've got three casings," said Catherine.

"But only two bullets," added Grissom.

"There's a bullet missing. If those were from Greg's gun, maybe he managed to get his attacker."

"Well, they're probably not the attackers. This guy's a signature killer – "

"Don't use that word," said Catherine. It wasn't right; Greg wasn't dead.

"Sorry. He's a signature attacker. He uses a knife. The bullets are from Greg's gun."

"Then some of this spatter," said Catherine, shining her light upon the blood, "must be our attacker's."


	10. Chapter 10

"Mia, talk to me."

It was noon, the day after Greg's disappearance. Greg, being one of the more popular CSIs around the headquarters, was receiving some special attention, it seemed. All of nightshift had turned up early, and they were working like they'd never worked before.

Presently, Catherine had burst into Mia's section of the lab, where she was working as hard as the rest of them.

"Okay," said Mia. "I've been working non-stop since six this morning, haven't had a single coffee, and my eyes are getting real sore from looking down the microscope."

"I mean what have you found out? Anything?" Catherine's patience was starting to run thin.

"Look, it's not my fault Greg's gone," Mia snapped back. "Give me a break, will you?"

"I'm sorry," said Catherine, massaging her forehead. "I'm really stressed out right now."

"Everyone's stressed out right now," replied Mia.

"Okay, so what have you got?" repeated Catherine.

"The two bullets you recovered are a match to the casings you found," said Mia. "Just to make sure, I compared them to bullets from Nick's gun when he was in here earlier. Perfect match."

"So that was Greg's gun that fired those shots," said Catherine.

"Probably," said Mia. "Whether or not it was Greg who pulled the trigger...I'm going to need some more evidence."

"Well, this guy's signature is to attack with a knife," said Catherine. "And signatures don't usually change, so...thanks, Mia."

And she left, musing on the information.

Catherine was confident that Greg had fired at his attacker in self-defense. She was also confident that one of the bullets had struck home.

She was going to go back to the scene. Some of the blood was not Greg's, and she was going to find out whose.

---

Grissom strode up to Hodges' desk and put his hands down on it. The lab tech, with dark shadows clouding his bloodshot eyes, looked up.

"You don't look so good," said Grissom.

"Neither would you, if you'd been in here for six hours straight," answered Hodges bitterly. "Do you know how stuffy this room gets?"

"Take a break," said Grissom. "Have a coffee. But first, tell me what you know and I don't."

"I identified the leaf that Catherine found at the crime scene," said Hodges. "It's chewing tobacco."

"Have you isolated the brand?"

"You're kidding, right? But that's not the only thing. You remember that strange pulp Nick found in the receiver of Tony Sherman's phone?"

"Yeah?"

"That's also chewing tobacco. As far as I can tell, it's the same kind."

An idea hit Grissom. If the tobacco in the phone had been reduced to pulp, it was already chewed. And if it was already chewed...

"Tell me you swabbed it for DNA before you processed it," said Grissom.

"Give me some credit, Grissom," replied Hodges. "I did, actually, and there was no shortage of DNA there. Did you know that saliva is a more potent DNA source than blood?"

"Give me some credit, Hodges," retorted Grissom. "Did you get a hit on CODIS?"

"I ran it through, but nothing came up," said Hodges. "This guy's a first time offender."

"Or he's just never been caught."

---

Catherine examined the blood in the alleyway intensely. The stuff was everywhere: on the ground, on the walls, on the dumpster...it would be impossible to isolate Greg's blood from the attackers.

Impossible, that is, to anyone but Catherine Willows.

There was a streak shooting straight upwards from the ground. It was very thin, suggesting a stab wound, not a slash. Plus, if he had been slashed, there would have been some extra droplets cast off. So Greg had been pinned down and stabbed in a vessel. Considering the spot where Greg's head had been (there was a small pool there, indicating a head injury), the spot that had been stabbed must have been right next to the wall, and near the shoulder. Greg had been stabbed in the upper arm. She swabbed this.

There was a scattered spray of blood droplets on the wall a few inches closer to the mouth of the alley. This led Catherine to believe there was a second wound. This one was probably a slash wound. Perhaps to the chest? This she swabbed as well.

Then she came to the third. This one was much worse in terms of blood quantity. It was a large, dry pool near the base of the dumpster. Using the point where Greg's head had rested, she determined that this had come from a wound just under Greg's right clavicle. It was a stab wound (owing, once more, to the lack of excess spatter) that had not pierced any vessels, but gone deep enough to tap a spring of blood. Once again, out came the old swab.

Now there was but one spot left. It was a spray of droplets – maybe 'blast' would be a more appropriate term – relatively high up on the wall: just a bit higher up than Catherine's eye level. It started wide, and gradually tapered to a blunt point. The wide end was a very fine, clustered spray of blood droplets, but as it neared the other end, the droplets became larger and more scattered.

To top that off, there was a tiny collection of black particles near the wide end. Catherine photographed it, and knew instantly what it was. GSR.

This spray was caused by a gunshot.

And that meant that they now had their attacker's DNA. Catherine swabbed it and hurried back to the lab.

---

"Once again, no hits," said Hodges, after scanning Catherine's blood sample. He took a sip from his freshly poured mug of coffee and turned around to face her.

"What?" said Catherine, staring at him incredulously. "You don't mean to tell me this guy's never done anything wrong in his life?"

"Or he's never been caught, to get in Grissom's frame of mind," answered Hodges.

"Wait a minute, you've already talked to Grissom?"

"Mm-hmm."

"But I only just recovered this blood. Don't tell me he did it already."

"No, he didn't. I should correct myself. When I said 'no hits', I meant no hits on CODIS. The blood is, however, an absolutely perfect match to saliva recovered from the tobacco in Tony Sherman's phone."

"Tobacco? Sherman's phone?"

"Ask Grissom, he'll fill you in."

"No, Hodges, I'm asking you. And you're going to tell me, because I don't want to waste time trying to find Grissom while Greg's still missing. So what happened?"

"Well, Nick recovered some chewed up tobacco from the phone at Tony Sherman's house. The tobacco is the same as the leaf you found near the scene of Greg's attack. So I swabbed the DNA on the chewed sample and got nothing. Except of course that it's from the same person that attacked Greg."

"So the attacker has been to Sherman's house and used his phone, which means that it's the same person that called Sara."

"Most probably."

"I need to talk to Brass."

And thus Catherine turned on her heel and left the lab's most bitter technician to his own devices.

"You're welcome," he called after her.

---

"Hey, Brass," said Catherine, walking into the Captain's office.

"Catherine," he said, upon turning to see her. "What's up?"

"I need a warrant," she said.

"What for?"

"DNA. Manfred Kirby and Dustin Orwell. My money's on Kirby, but Orwell's not to be ignored either. He's the owner of the bloody knife found near Archie, and also the owner of the only prints on it."

"And the blood on the knife was definitely Archie's?"

"Yeah, DNA never lies."

"What about Sherman?"

"We had him in custody when Greg wasn't attacked. It wasn't him."

"Right, I'll call up the DA and get it arranged. But what about that Gaston Moreau guy?"

"Nothing places him at Sherman's house. Far as we know, Sherman was just some patron to him."

"I couldn't get a warrant without more evidence. Alright, I'll get it done."

---

Grissom sat across the table from Manfred Kirby, whom they had managed to track down again, even after releasing him. The latter looked at Grissom, his arms crossed and an insolent smirk upon his square face. He shook his head slightly.

"What?" asked Grissom.

"Nothin'," said Manfred. "I bet you were the biggest nerd in high school."

"What makes you say that?"

"You sitting there with your glasses and your neat suit, acting like you're smarter than everyone."

"Well, out of everyone in this room, I might call myself the smartest, yes."

Manfred leaned forward.

"You know, as soon as I get the hell outta here, you better watch your ass. I'm not happy about sitting in a jail cell all night."

"You seem to be under the impression that you're intimidating me, Mr Kirby. You'd be wrong. You may possess great physical strength and a volatile temper, but you also have a certain slowness of wit which makes me incapable of fearing you."

A spark of anger flashed in Manfred's eyes.

"Let me ask you this," said Grissom. "If muscle and brawn are all that's needed to win a fight, how did the English, vastly outnumbered, defeat the French at Agincourt? How did Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo?"

"I don't need to be a nerd like you to beat you to a pulp."

"Did you ever actually achieve more than a high school mentality when you graduated?"

"Dropped out in tenth grade. High school's pointless anyway."

"That would explain a lot." Manfred was about to retort, but decided not to bother.

"Why the hell are we here, anyway?"

"I'm going to need a sample of your DNA," said Grissom, getting to the point. He took a swab from his kit and held it up. "Open wide."

"I ain't giving you nothing. Can't make me." As he spoke, Brass entered the room, carrying an official-looking piece of paper.

"Wrong again, I'm afraid," said Grissom.

"This is a warrant," said Brass. "That's spelled with two 'R's. It's a special piece of paper we get from the government, telling us that we can have however much spit we need from you."

"Open wide," said Grissom, leaning forward with swab in hand.

---

"Hello, Mr Orwell," said Catherine stiffly, walking into the interrogation room where Dustin Orwell had been brought. "How's it going?"

"Well, I just got arrested and taken away from work in front of my boss, so how do you think?"

"If your tone's any indication, I'd say you're feeling like hell."

"No wonder you became a cop. So what do you want?"

"Actually, I want your DNA," said Catherine, producing a swab of her own.

"What for?"

"To compare it to a blood sample we found at the scene of a kidnapping...and possible murder."

Catherine's throat lumped as she said the last three words, but managed to maintain her tough reserve.

"I don't really want to."

"I'm not interested in whether _you_ want to. _I_ want you to. And you're going to do what I want, because I have a warrant."

She slid the paper over to him. He conceded defeat before even reading it, and opened his mouth. Catherine swabbed his left cheek before putting the swab back in a plastic tube and stowing it in her pocket.

"Thank you. Now, while we're testing your DNA, this kind officer will escort you to your cell."

---

"What do you mean?"

Catherine was standing over Mia, an incredulous look upon her face.

"I mean what I said," said Mia. "The blood sample does not match Kirby or Orwell."

Catherine massaged her temple. She had been so sure...

"I'm sorry," said Mia.


	11. Chapter 11

_Greg Sanders' bloodshot eyes open groggily and the pupils move around, taking in the surroundings. It's the first time he's woken up since last night, when I bashed his nose in. It felt good to do so, but that was not the point at hand._

"Awake finally, are we, Sleeping Beauty?" I gloat. The power I'm feeling, having him trapped here like a rat, it's the greatest feeling I've ever experienced...he can do absolutely nothing, even with a nice-sized window behind him, and that is the best part.

He is bound to a vertical water pipe by a zap strap. His hands are unbound so he can drink...we want him alive, for now.

"Go away..." he manages to groan and shuts his eyes again.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you," I say, and strike him across the cheekbone.

"They'll find you, you know," says Greg. "They always do. Maybe they'll find me too..."

"Ha!" I bark. "By the time they find you, you'll be a shriveled corpse and smelling like a dead skunk in a sewer. Won't that be lovely?"

I grin to myself, enjoying this power.

"Anyway, must rush off now," I say, checking my watch. "I have to call my employer. By the way, make this last," I say, and thrust a water bottle on the ground next to him. "Because it's the only one you're getting."

I then kick him in the ribs, eliciting a grunt of pain. I pull a cell phone from my jacket, tell him to smile, and snap four pictures, and either strike or kick him as I take each one. I then shut the phone and head for the basement door.

"Sleep tight." I then turn on my heel and exit, closing the door behind me. As soon as I'm out, I flip open the phone again and dial a number.

"Hello?" it answers pleasantly.

"It's done," I answer. There is a pause, before the receiver speaks.

"Greg Sanders is dead?" it asks.

"No," I reply, but quickly continue. "He is very close, though."

"I thought you were going to make sure."

"I believed him to be. Then I heard him phoning his headquarters, and had to take him."

"You abducted him?"

"Yes."

"Why did you not kill him then?"

"If you wish to cause his friends as much anguish as possible, this is ideal. I've taken photos of him in his current state, and I'm going to send them to CSI."

There is a pause, as the other end ponders this. "That is an excellent idea," it says finally. "Good work. Now, are you ready for your next task?"

---

Mia stuck her hands in her pockets and walked down one of the many long, bluish hallways that ran through CSI. That was the longest day she'd ever spent in her life. Her whole life. Literally, no exaggeration, her whole God-damn life.

It was nine thirty and all she wanted to do was get home, put her stuff down and just go to sleep. Was that too much to ask?

"Not at all," Grissom had told her. "You've been working hard all day."

So she stepped out into the night air and just kept going. She didn't even stop to savour the relief of proper air, instead of stuffy lab air. She just wanted to get home as soon as she could.

But something happened then that put all thoughts of sleep out of her mind.

First she heard a small sound nearby, like something scraping on the asphalt. She stopped, and looked around warily. But the sound did not repeat. Thinking it must have been a figment of her imagination, she looked in front of her and continued towards her car.

That was when it happened.

A person, dressed all in black, his face masked, leapt out from behind the car closest to her, a knife held high in the air. He had boosted himself off the car's hood, and was flying straight down at her.

Mia screamed and threw herself out of the way. She landed on the ground and rolled over once, then turned her terrified eyes upward.

The attacker was standing over her, the knife gripped menacingly in his hand. With his gloved left hand, he slowly reached down for Mia's collar. She tried to back away, but she was so frightened she could hardly moved. His fingers soon found her collar and gripped it tightly.

She wanted to shut her eyes, but couldn't. She didn't seem to be able to do anything except watch helplessly as he pulled her forward, raising the knife as he did so. A beam of light fell upon her face from a streetlight. The knife was high. This was it.

Then the attacker stopped. What was visible of his brow furrowed, and his eyes were intent – as though not believing what he was seeing. Something wasn't right. What was going on? Why wasn't he killing her? Not that she was complaining, of course...

Then he let go of her collar and she fell to the ground with a thud. She stared at the night sky for a good few seconds, hardly daring to believe she was alive. Then she realized he could still be there, and sat up straight. She looked around frantically.

He was gone. He had simply vanished into the night, and left her there.

Why hadn't he gone through with it?

Mia couldn't bring herself to walk all the way across the parking lot to her car. That would be suicide. Instead, she got to her feet and, rubbing her stinging shoulder as she went, ran back toward the building.

She had to find someone...

"Warrick!"

Indeed, the CSI had just emerged from the headquarters, dusting off his jacket. He looked up quickly as Mia gasped his name. She sounded terrified.

"Mia?"

"Warrick, you've got to help me!" she pleaded hoarsely, running up to him and throwing her arms round him. There were tears of horror in her eyes. "I just- I almost- there was– I-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down!" said Warrick, patting her reassuringly on the back. "What's the problem?"

Mia, pulling back a bit so she could look at Warrick, tried to pull herself together. "Someone just – " She released Warrick completely, gulped, and suddenly retched all over the ground.

"Someone just tried to – to – to k-kill me," she stammered, leaning on her knees.

"Kill you?" said Warrick incredulously, slowly pulling his gun.

"Yeah...but he didn't go through with it. He stopped, just before – " She hurled again.

"Okay, okay, it's alright," said Warrick. "I'll have a look around."

Warrick cocked his gun and scanned the parking lot with his eyes. He held the pistol out in front of him, and slowly descended the steps into the lot. He looked around cautiously as he walked between the rows of cars.

"Hello?" he said, his voice echoing.

There was no answer. There wasn't even a sound, except for the roaring of cars passing the lot.

"Anyone there?"

Still nothing.

"Warrick Brown, CSI!" he said, as he looked about, peering around every car he came across. There didn't seem to be anyone - anywhere.

"Shouldn't you call for b-backup?" asked Mia from afar.

"Nah," said Warrick, lowering his gun, "he's probably gone by n – "

Suddenly the car next to Warrick sprang to life and before he had time to react, had swerved headlong into him. With a grunt of pain, he toppled onto the black hood. Whoever was driving was going straight for the car ahead of them. And they were moving fast.

Warrick hastily pulled his feet off of the grille and fired two shots into the windshield, shattering it. No blood, though.

Suddenly the car crashed into the other vehicle with an ear-splitting crunch. Warrick dropped his handgun, and it fell onto the floor of the passenger's side. Shit! That gave him another weapon.

Finally the vehicles lurched to a stop, and Warrick rolled off the hood on the passenger side. As he stumbled to his feet, feeling like one massive bruise, he heard the driver's door slam.

He looked up just in time. The attacker was already two feet away, swinging the knife horizontally. Warrick twisted out of the way, and the knife sliced his forearm. He let out a yell of pain, span round, and threw as hard a punch as he could muster.

His fist hit home, making impact with his assailant's forehead. As the attacker clutched his head and staggered, Warrick took the window of time to retrieve his gun. As soon as he had done so, he turned around and pointed it. But his attacker wasn't done yet. He'd already regrouped and was charging, knife in hand.

Warrick fired off another two shots, but the faceless assailant ducked and they missed. He smashed straight into Warrick, but Warrick threw his weight at him at the same time, and the bread knife fell to the ground and went skittering away under the car.

Instead, the attacker tried to take the pistol from Warrick, but the CSI wouldn't let go. They grappled with it for a few moments, and through carelessness, the remainder of the clip was wasted.

The gun was dropped and a melee began. The attacker sank his fist into Warrick's stomach. Warrick replied with a powerful punch between his shoulder blades. The attacker moved backwards and raised his fists, and Warrick did likewise.

"Mia! Go get – " A fist connected hard with the right side of Warrick's head, sending a searing pain through his jaw. He felt sure it was dislocated. He threw an uppercut, but missed.

The two of them ended up in a kind of mock bare-knuckle boxing match. Throughout the proceedings, the two men ducked and bobbed and punched, but not many made their marks. Eventually, Warrick's fist flew forward through the air like a freight train, and smashed the assailant's nose in. He howled in pain and staggered backward.

"Hold it right there!" came Brass' voice from the steps of the HQ. The attacker looked up, thought for a moment, then kicked Warrick's legs out from under him and bolted. There was the sound of three guns firing, but they all missed and the assailant disappeared into the night.

Warrick cursed under his breath and struggled to sit up. He looked over to see Brass, Grissom, and Catherine all jogging towards him. Actually, Brass was running for the parking lot exit, in hot pursuit of the suspect.

"Warrick!" shouted Catherine as she and Grissom came up next to him. "Are you alright?"

"My mouth," grunted Warrick, but his jaw was dislocated, so he was quite incomprehensible.

"His jaw's dislocated," said Grissom. "Call for an ambulance."

"Right," said Catherine, and took out her cell phone.

"Warrick, are you okay?" asked Grissom. "Just nod or shake your head, don't try and talk."

Warrick nodded, wincing at the pain.

"Did you see what he looked like?" asked Grissom.

Warrick shook his head. He looked down to see there was blood all over his knuckles, so he made a move to wipe them off on his pants. Grissom stopped him quickly.

"Don't do that!" he said. Warrick looked at him questioningly. Grissom elaborated. "That blood is evidence."


	12. Chapter 12

"Alright, let's put together what we've got."

Grissom was standing at the head of the meeting room table. Catherine, Nick, Sara, and Brass (Warrick had been taken to the hospital) all sat around it, their eyes fixed on him intently. They had all decided against going home that night. Instead they stayed, united in their hatred of the bastard who was doing this, and in their hope that they would find Greg...alive.

"We have our killer's DNA, blood and saliva," said Catherine.

"But no match," added Nick.

"Two bloody knives, one with Dustin Orwell's prints," said Brass.

"Catherine, did you print the knife that he used to attack Warrick?"

"Yeah, it's being scanned right now. I told Hodges to come to us with the news if it was matched."

"What else?"

"We have our attacker's voice," said Sara. "Male."

"Great, that narrows it down to just a couple million suspects," said Brass.

"He's got size nine feet," said Nick. "And from the tracks, Warrick determined he wears Guccis. Real nice. Real pricey."

"He also chews tobacco," said Catherine. "Real high-end, expensive stuff."

"So he wears expensive shoes and chews expensive tobacco. He's probably a wealthy man."

"A wealthy Las Vegas resident," said Catherine skeptically. "That could be anyone...casino owners, restaurateurs, hoteliers, pimps, racketeers, movie stars, anyone who's won the jackpot..."

"I got it, Catherine," said Grissom, cutting her off snappily. "Don't vent on me."

"I'm just trying to make a point, Gil!"

"You should be saving your anger for the guy who's doing this."

"Well I'm sorry, but he's not here right now, is he?"

"So you're going to take it out on me instead?"

The argument was getting quite heated. There was fire in Catherine's eyes, and Grissom's brows were getting closer together by the second. Presently, Nick took it upon himself to intervene.

"Whoa, whoa, guys...calm down," he said, but slowly and cautiously. He didn't want Catherine on his back too...or Grissom, for that matter. Both pairs of sharp eyes turned on him. He didn't like it.

"Nick, stay out of this," said Catherine. She didn't sound too happy with Nick.

"I'm just saying..." said Nick defensively, raising his hands.

"He's right," Sara piped up. Now it was her turn to receive the menacing stares. "Well, he is," she continued. "You guys have to tone it down a bit."

"We're not going to get anywhere arguing," added Nick.

"Gil, Catherine, I hate to disagree with you but...I'm with them on this one," said Brass.

Grissom's eyes darted from the captain to Nick to Sara. Finally, he looked back at Catherine, and she looked back at him. Grissom saw that they were right. Fighting was going to get nothing accomplished.

"You're right," he conceded. He softened visibly. "We have to remain objective, even when it's one of our own who's missing. Catherine?"

"I'm sorry," she said after a momentary pause. "I was wrong to get mad. But I just don't understand how you can be so...so calm, when Greg's missing."

"Calm? I'm anything but calm," said Grissom. "The last time I was this worried, Nick was six feet underground. Sorry to bring that up, Poncho."

Nick nodded in acceptance of the apology. The memory was still a terrifying one, one that haunted him in his sleep.

"From now on, we all keep our heads and remain cool, got it?" said Grissom. Four heads round the table nodded. "Good. Now we're getting somewhere."

It was at that moment when there was a little, muffled electronic beeping. It was coming from where Grissom stood. It was his cell phone. He quickly dug it out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

Someone was trying to send him some files.

He flipped the phone open and told it to accept the file transfer. A few seconds later, Grissom started and slowly put on his glasses, as though not believing what he was seeing.

Catherine was uneasy about this. When Grissom started, then put on his glasses, something was up.

"Gil, what's up?" Catherine asked nervously. Grissom, his manner dark and foreboding, passed the phone down to Catherine, who examined the picture on the screen. Her mouth dropped open in shock.

It was Greg. He was tied to a pipe by a zap strap around his neck. There was a bottle of unpleasant looking water next to him. He was not looking in good shape. He had no shirt, and this served to reveal his wounds. He had a slash across his torso, a stab wound in his chest, and some sort of wound on his left upper arm. There was gauze wrapped around his arm and torso, and some more simply stuffed into his stab wound. He was bruised and battered, and had a bloody broken nose. It looked as though he was in a lot of pain.

Catherine, her mouth half open, passed the phone on to Brass. After he had looked at it, it went to Nick, then Sara, then back to Grissom.

This was getting too deep. They had to stop it before someone actually got killed. They had been very lucky so far, in that none of them was dead yet. But how long could that go on for?

"Greg's alive," said Nick. "He's still alive."

"Or he was when those pictures were taken, anyway," said Sara.

"The pictures were taken precisely two hours ago," said Grissom, squinting at the photo.

"How can you tell?" asked Brass.

"There's a clock in the background," said Grissom. "It reads ten forty."

"That could be AM," said Catherine.

"It isn't," said Grissom. "There's a window behind Greg. It's dark out."

"He was alive two hours ago," said Nick, "so he's probably still alive now?"

"It's likely," said Grissom.

"What else do we know?" said Brass.

"This guy obviously has a pattern," said Grissom. "That's important."

"He picks out his victims beforehand," said Nick.

"Why else would he have gone for Mia, then thought better of it at the last second?" It was Sara that brought up this influential point. "It wasn't conscience."

"So what's his pattern?" asked Brass.

"Archie, Greg, Warrick, in that order," said Catherine.

"But why that order?" added Grissom

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Everyone swiveled to see who their visitor was as it swung open. Bearing a piece of paper in his left hand and a confident half-smile on his face was the form of David Hodges.

Grissom took a step towards him. "Well?" he asked.

"I ran your prints through AFIS," said Hodges. "And you'll be pleased to know, I managed to get a hit."

"Who?" The question came from everyone in the room, almost in unison.

"This is the best part," said Hodges, his grin increasing in smugness. "They were a match to none other than Dustin Orwell."

Grissom started. "Dustin Orwell's prints were on the knife used to attack Archie," he said, turning to the others.

"And I bet if we test his blood," said Catherine, standing, "it'll match the sample I found at Greg's crime scene."

"Jim!" said Grissom.

"I'm on it," said Brass and jumped out of his chair.


	13. Chapter 13

There was no peace in Dustin Orwell's neighbourhood that night. He lived in a very large, very expensive house in the suburban area of the city. The house itself was made of top-end brick (two storeys) with a slate roof. There was a large, extremely green lawn with a swimming pool in the back. There was a deck overhanging the front door, which the police were now approaching.

Brass, along with four officers, got to the door first. They all had their guns at the ready. One of them stepped forward and delivered a solid, powerful kick to the lock mechanism of the door, which swung wide open. Brass and the officers burst in and fanned out, pointing their weapons.

The room they had come into was a foyer. The floor was grey linoleum. There was a glass sliding door on the far wall that led out onto the porch. On the left wall there was a wooden door, and on the right wall, two more doors.

After the preliminary sweep was done, Brass held up his walkie-talkie.

"All clear," he said into it. Grissom and Nick entered just in time to see Brass giving out orders.

"Jameson, Vartann, search the back yard," ordered Brass.

"Nick, you go with them," said Grissom.

"Cavaliere and Logan, you guys are with me," continued Brass. Nick and the two officers departed through the glass door on the far wall for the yard.

Detective Logan moved towards the door on the left wall. He carefully took the brass knob in hand and flung the door open. A mop fell over in the broom closet he had just opened, but no one was inside.

Cavaliere opened the right-hand door on the right wall, to reveal a bathroom. He went inside, gun first, and did a brief check around it.

"Nothing," he reported, re-emerging.

"One way left to go," said Brass.

So the three detectives made their way slowly to the last remaining unchecked door.

---

Vartann and Jameson walked cautiously across the cobblestone porch, weapons at the ready. Nick walked around the edge of the swimming pool built into the porch itself, and examined the hot tub next to it.

"Anyone here?" Jameson, responsible for these two words, was quite the hotshot. He seemed to think very highly of himself, and had a bit of an insubordination problem.

"Shh," said Vartann, holding up a hand to silence him. "You'll give us away."

"Sorry," said Jameson sardonically.

Nick rolled his eyes. The cop was just lucky he wasn't with Cavaliere or Brass.

"Doesn't look like anyone's out here," said Vartann. "There's a door to the kitchen right there...let's head in. Nick, you coming?"

"Nah, I'm going to have a look around first," said Nick.

"Jameson, let's go," said Vartann, and headed for the door.

---

Brass reached out and took hold of the doorknob. In one swift motion, he twisted it and flung it open. He, Cavaliere, and Logan all burst in, guns pointed straight ahead. Grissom was right behind them.

But there was no need for the impressive show they put on. The only signs of life in the living room they had just entered were a few potted plants. The TV was on as well, and I To Live And Die In L.A. /I was blazing away, but that hardly counted as living.

"Come on, where are you?" growled Cavaliere, to no one in particular. Grissom glanced out the large window that looked out on the back yard. He could see Nick, searching around the pool area.

---

Vartann and Jameson entered the kitchen through the outer door, which was unlocked and actually wide open. Nothing stirred. There was no one there, unless you counted the tropical fish tank on the counter.

The kitchen-dining room was filled with the scent of spice, and the stove was on and heating up. Orwell was definitely here...it was just a matter of finding him.

Well, one place to look might be up the stairs in the dining room section. Jameson and Vartann speedily approached the spiral staircase and ascended. When they reached the top, they found themselves in a study. There was a computer on a polished mahogany desk, an oak bookcase, and a sofa with a coffee table in front of it. A large window offered a nice view of the suburbia of Las Vegas, and also Mr Orwell's front deck.

There was a door on the right wall. Jameson walked over to it and opened it slowly, looking carefully into the next room before entering. There was literally nothing in it except a sliding door onto the deck, a very big, open window that showed the back yard, and a door on the far end into another room. Presumably the bedroom.

Well, it was past midnight. Their guy was much more likely to be getting his good eight hours than he was to be sitting out on his deck.

Their next destination seemed obvious, so they went for it.

---

Brass, Cavaliere, Logan, and Grissom all entered the kitchen-dining room and looked around. The linoleum-floored kitchen was on the left hand side, and the hardwood-floored dining room was on the right. There was a shiny oak spiral staircase leading to the upper storey near the dining table.

"Very art deco," remarked Grissom.

He looked around the room and noticed something which made a small smile tug at the sides of his mouth. "Shoes," he said, and it was true. There was a pair of newly polished Guccis in the corner.

Grissom walked over, latex gloves on, and tilted one onto its side. He clicked on his small flashlight and shone it on the shadowy underside.

"The pattern on these shoes matches the treads found at the scene," said Grissom, a note of grim triumph in his voice.

"That places Orwell at the crime scene," said Brass. "We've got our guy."

No one had time to discuss the matter further as Logan brought up a question.

"Hey, do you hear someone shouting?"

"Yeah, it sounds pretty heated," said Brass, looking up the stairwell. He couldn't see anyone, but he was pretty certain that was where the noise was coming from. He could make out Vartann and Jameson's voices.

"Come on, let's go," said Brass, starting up the stairwell. "Gil, you'd better stay down here," he added, halfway up.

"I was going to anyway," said Grissom. "I want to have a look round first."

"Cavaliere, Logan, come on."

---

Vartann and Jameson had only just reached the bedroom door when there came the sound of a sliding door opening. They span around swiftly.

"Las Vegas police!" shouted Vartann. "Don't move!"

Through the sliding door, the frightened shape of Dustin Orwell entered. His hands were held high in the air, and his arms were all a-quiver.

"W-what's going on?" he stammered, looking from one armed officer to the next and back.

"Mr Orwell, you're under arrest for three counts of attempted murder, one count of kidnapping, and one count of assault," announced Vartann, walking forward.

Orwell started to lower his hands, a confused and petrified expression on his face.

"Keep your hands up!" ordered Jameson.

"What are you t-talking about?" he asked. "I di-didn't do anything like that!"

"Put your hands behind your head and drop any weapons you may be carrying," said Vartann, his voice steady and calm but filled with menace.

"I don't have any weapons," said Orwell, putting his hands behind his head.

"Be quiet," said Jameson, keeping his weapon trained on Orwell's head.

"Whatever you're talking about – "

"Quiet."

" – I didn't – "

"Quiet!"

"Jameson!" shouted Vartann. "That's enough."

Just then the study door burst open and Brass, Cavaliere, and Logan charged in.

"What's going – " began Cavaliere, but then he saw Orwell.

"Why are all y-you guys here?" stuttered Orwell, clearly terrified.

"We've come to tell you that you've won the CSI lottery," said Brass sarcastically. "Your prize is a free trip to prison."

"You can't do that!" protested Orwell, slowly backing towards his deck door.

"Mr Orwell, stay where you are," warned Brass. The officers were slowly encroaching.

"I didn't do anything wrong!" he screamed, still backing up.

Before anything further could happen, however, there was an unexpected intervention. First, Orwell's eyes widened in unimaginable horror. Then, a sound like something flying through the air behind them reached the police officers' ears.

They all saw the pipe bomb spiral past their heads, and suddenly everything, including them, seemed to slow down. They could see it, it was right in front of them, but no one could do anything. They were locked in a trance. The bomb sailed through the air, towards Orwell, who held out his hands in an effort to stop it, and landed smack in the middle of his open palms.

Then all hell broke loose.

The pipe bomb detonated. A massive tongue of flame ripped the walls facing the street and back yard out and strewed them across the ground nearby. The floor under the apex of the explosion was blasted out. The four officers were flung into the air, licked at by fire and sparks. They came down to the ground with loud crashes that were drowned out by the overpowering sound of the bomb.

Brass raised his head slowly and looked around. It didn't seem like they were in a room anymore...the ceiling had a gaping hole in it, and what walls and floor remained were slick with blood – that of Dustin Orwell.

Brass' entire body seared with pain, but he'd live. "Everyone alright?" he asked.

He heard groans to the affirmative from Cavaliere, Vartann and Logan, but nothing from Jameson. That was not good. Just as he was going to speak up again, Vartann did so.

"Shit!" came his voice suddenly. "It's Jameson!"

Brass looked to where the voice had come from. Through the smoke and ash, he could see Vartann looking to his right. There was a figure sprawled on the ground face first, his burnt uniform smoking. Jameson was dead.

Suddenly, gunshots started to ring out down below.

---

Grissom walked back into the living room and looked around. He could hear the police officers negotiating with someone above, so he knew it wouldn't be long before they had their guy in custody. Then, they'd be one step closer to getting Greg back.

By chance, he happened to look through the window on the back yard. He saw Nick, facing the house, and gave him a small wave. Nick gave a thumbs up.

It was then that Grissom noticed the other man standing behind Nick.

"Nicky – " he began, but didn't get a chance to finish. The other man threw something, up to the second storey. A second later, the roof above Grissom exploded in a shower of fire and wood, and he was thrown to the ground.

---

Nick ran his flashlight across the grass. He didn't think he'd find anything to incriminate Mr Orwell out here, but it didn't hurt to look.

He looked up for a moment to see Grissom standing in the living room. He seemed to be watching Nick. He waved, and Nick replied with a thumbs up, to indicate all was good.

His eyes turned down once again, but it was pretty well useless for them to do so. He heard Grissom's voice, muffled through the window.

"Nicky – " Just then, the upper level of the house went up in a burst of angry flame, which shot down to the lower level and knocked Grissom on his face.

Nick drew his gun quickly and held it in front of him. He span around, and the beam of light fell upon a man standing there. He was dressed completely in black, and a mask obscured his face.

"Why, hello, Nick," he said pleasantly. "I'm so glad you're here."

The man raised his arm and pulled the trigger on the gun Nick had neglected to notice in the man's hand. Sparks flew from Nick's gun as the bullet hit it and sent it flying out of his hands.

"You see, you're next," said the man, and with his free hand drew a bowie knife from his belt.

He was preparing to attack Nick, when there was a gunshot and the living room window shattered, sending shards of glass everywhere.

"Hold it, pal!" It was Grissom. He was pointing his own gun, and stepping over the windowsill. "Nick, back off."

"Piss off, Grissom," said the man, a hint of annoyance in his voice, and promptly fired his gun. A bullet tore through Grissom's upper arm, threw him off balance, and sent him to the ground with a yelp of pain.

Nick didn't have time to register this before the man was upon him. Before he knew it, he was pinned down, and the man had plunged the bowie into his arm and slashed him off the chest. He barely had time to scream before the blade sunk into his breast, and then the pain was so extreme that he couldn't make a sound.

The world turned to darkness seconds later. But before it did so, he just had time to see the man leap away and disappear into the night.


	14. Chapter 14

"He's extremely lucky we got him here in time," said a grim-faced doctor (the same grim-faced doctor who had attended to Archie), reviewing his notes. "He lost a great deal of blood, two ribs were broken, and his left lung was punctured."

Nick was lying in a hospital bed, utterly unconscious. He had an IV hooked up, was encased in bandage, and was looking extremely battered up. An ECG kept a careful vigil over his heart rate.

"Will he be alright?" asked Catherine. She, Grissom (with a tourniquet wrapped round his wound), Warrick, and Sara had all shoed up at the hospital to see how he was doing.

"He'll live, yes," said the doctor, looking up at them with his dark and bloodshot eyes. "Had he arrived any later...he wouldn't have."

Catherine, Warrick, and Sara exchanged a significant look. Grissom did not make eye contact with any of them. He was deep in thought, and the doctor's words were only barely getting through to his brain.

"Any idea when – " began Sara.

" – he'll be back at work?" finished the doctor. "At this rate, it's difficult to tell. He's in a very unstable condition."

"Attention: visiting hours are now over," a monotonous female voice droned over the PA system. "Visiting hours are not over," it repeated.

"There's the door," said the doctor (rather bluntly, Sara thought). "You may come back and see your friend tomorrow, if he has stabilized by then."

"Thanks for the good news, Dr Doom," said Warrick sardonically under his breath as the four of them exited the room.

"Nick doesn't seem to get any breaks, does he?" said Sara, as the four of them left the room and entered the long, sterile, white hallway. "First a stalker."

"Then a box underground," said Warrick, a darkness clouding his brown eyes.

"And now this," finished Catherine. She looked into Warrick's eyes. There was a significantly serious look in them. Of course, they were all looking serious; Nick was in critical condition. But Catherine could sense that it was something more than that. "Warrick...you alright?" asked Catherine.

"I'm just thinking," replied Warrick. "All this stuff happens to Nick, and he really doesn't deserve it. Now I feel bad that I got off so easy when this guy attacked me, and Nick..." He trailed off. He didn't have to finish.

"This wasn't your fault," said Catherine.

"If I had been at that house, with Nick – "

"You couldn't," Sara interrupted. "You were here."

"You didn't do anything wrong," said Catherine. She was waiting for some words of encouragement from Grissom, but they didn't come. She looked over at where he was standing.

But the thing was, he wasn't standing there. Catherine looked around for a moment, then caught sight of him walking away from the three of them, down the hallway.

"Hang on, you guys," said Catherine, and chased after him. "Grissom!" she said, but he did not turn around. Eventually she caught up to him, bolted in front of him, and brought him to a halt.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"For a walk," replied Grissom, his voice empty of emotion.

"What's the matter, Gil?" said Catherine. "Warrick's on the verge of a nervous breakdown back there. We need you."

"Catherine, just leave me," said Grissom.

"What is your problem?"

"You want to know what my problem is?" he snapped suddenly, making a few nurses nearby flinch. "Fine. It was my idea to go to that house. Now, because of that, an officer and an innocent man are dead, and Nick's in critical condition. Along with that, Warrick's been attacked, Archie's in a room just down that hallway, Greg is missing, we have no way of finding him, and no idea who the hell is doing all this. Now look me in the eye and tell me that I have no reason to have a problem with that!"

"Gil – "

"Catherine, please, I just want to think."

"Look, Gil, you can't just take off like this. Your team needs you. I need you. And Nick, Archie, and Greg need you more than anyone."

Grissom refused to make eye contact with Catherine.

"Come on," continued Catherine. "We need to do something. We have to figure out what the pattern is, figure out who's doing this, and stop him. Sulking outside, stewing in the guilt that shouldn't be yours isn't going to help."

Grissom's eyes finally met Catherine's. They were hard and insistent, but there was pleading there as well...something that was scarcely ever seen in Catherine. "We need a leader," she said.

They needed a leader. But was Grissom capable of being one anymore? Wouldn't Catherine make a much better leader than him?

"Please."

Grissom took a deep breath and said, "Okay. Let's find this bastard."

He turned and strode back to where Warrick and Sara stood, Catherine moving along in his wake. "Here's the plan," said Grissom. "Someone has to go back to that crime scene. We need all the evidence we can get."

"I'm gone," said Sara, and without so much as another word hurried away down the hallway.

"Take an officer with you," Grissom called after her. Without turning around, she gave him a thumbs-up: she understood.

"Someone needs to stay here with Nick," Grissom continued. "If he wakes up, they can talk to him about what happened. Maybe we can gets some more information from him."

"I'll do that," said Warrick. "If they've got a problem with that, tough." With that, he reentered Nick's room, an air of determination about him.

"What about me?" asked Catherine. The expression on her face was something close to awe; Grissom had pulled himself together and organized them all so fast.

Grissom looked at her and said, "We're going back to the lab and figuring this guy out."

---

"Four victims," said Grissom, walking up to the white board in his office. He uncapped a marker and began to write their names down. "Archie Johnson, Greg Sanders, Warrick Brown, and Nick Stokes."

He wrote their names in order, and a line connecting each consecutive name.

"He also bypassed Mia in favour of Warrick." As he said this, he drew a diagonal line coming off the one that connected Greg and Warrick and wrote 'Mia Dickerson' at the end of it.

"That shows he doesn't kill at random," said Catherine, standing next to Grissom. "He's got his victims planned out."

"Probably in a specific order," reasoned Grissom. "He knew where to wait for each victim in turn."

"So what's the pattern?" said Catherine. It was more of an out loud thought than a question.

Grissom wrote the word 'Pattern?' below the chart he had just drawn.

"Once we figure that out, we can figure out who's next," added Grissom.

The two CSIs stood back and looked intently at the board, trying to make some sense of it all. Archie, Greg, Warrick, Nick. There had to be some sort of reason they had been attacked in that order...

"Age, maybe?" suggested Catherine. "Youngest to oldest?"

"It's possible," said Grissom, furrowing the brow. "I'll check."

He slid into the chair at his desk. He quickly logged on to his computer and pulled up the CSIs' files. He opened up 'Johnson, Archibald', 'Sanders, Gregory', 'Brown, Warrick', and 'Stokes, Nicholas'.

"Archie, 1973. Greg, 1975. Warrick, 1966. And Nick, 1967," said Grissom grimly. The theory didn't check out. "Greg's youngest, followed by Archie, then Nick, then Warrick."

"Well, that blew my theory all to hell," said Catherine. "Now where are we?"

But Grissom wasn't about to be so negative; he'd just come up with another theory. "Closer," he said, and resumed his work on the computer.

Catherine didn't even bother to ask. If Grissom was concentrating, it was no good speaking to him about it until he was finished. So she decided to hang about and wait for him to finish.

When a wry, triumphant smile spread across Grissom's face, Catherine knew that he had not only finished, but also hit on something.

"Well?" asked Catherine, for Grissom had been grinning at his computer screen for a good while now, not saying anything.

"You put me on to this," said Grissom. "With the dates. Archie was just made a CSI Level Three this year. Greg was last year. Warrick was last before Greg, and Nick was before Warrick."

"So he's attacking people depending on how long they've been a CSI?" said Catherine. "Shortest time to longest time."

"Right," said Grissom.

"But why? What reason does he have for going in that order?"

Grissom hadn't figured this one out just yet. "I don't know," he admitted. "But that's not the point at hand. Right now, we've got to figure out who's next."

"Who was the last person on our team made a CSI before Nick?" asked Catherine. But she figured it out for herself in a moment, and Grissom seemed to as well.

Together, in the same grim, dark voice, they said, "Sara."

---

Sara crouched down next to the large blood pool where Nick had fallen. She placed a yellow plastic marker with a black '1' on it in the pool and snapped three pictures.

But as far as she could see, there was no other evidence. This guy knew how to leave a squeaky-clean crime scene. Sara had just gotten her hopes up, too...maybe this one would have something, I something /I to nail this guy.

But there was nothing.

"Alright, Sara?" came Detective Vartann's voice. He stood a short distance away in the kitchen door, keeping a close eye on the CSI.

"All good," answered Sara, not looking up.

Suddenly Sara started. Laying, discarded, in the grass was a hitherto unnoticed, black leather glove. She could get fingerprints from it...then again, if his DNA wasn't on file, his prints probably wouldn't be. What was the harm in trying, though?

She put a marker next to the glove and photographed it. There was a clumping noise behind her as Vartann fidgeted. She then carefully raised it off the ground and turned it inside out. She removed her print powder and brush from her kit and dusted the end of each finger. Sure enough, five perfect, intact prints were soon visible. She tape-lifted each one and stowed them away.

Then something happened that interrupted Sara from continuing her investigation. Actually, it interrupted her from doing anything just then: a cloth was thrust over her face and the overpowering, sweet scent of chloroform reached her nostrils.

She gave a brief scream, but no one heard; it was muffled through the cloth and the attacker's hand.

"Thanks for finding my glove," he said in a sneering, gloating voice. Sara just had time to elbow him in the kidney before passing out.

---

A CSI Tahoe screeched up Dustin Orwell's driveway and lurched to a halt. Grissom and Catherine had opened their doors and leapt out before the vehicle had stopped swaying from the sudden halt.

Sara was in grave danger. They had to get her back to CSI before she got attacked as well. Scarcely taking time to open the front door, they jumped over the crime scene tape, burst through Orwell's foyer, and charged straight out into the back yard.

"Sara!" shouted Grissom, but there was no point.

Her kit lay discarded on the ground, open for all the world to see the contents. However, her camera was conspicuous by its absence, and was not the only thing: there was absolutely no sign of Sara.

"Oh God no..." murmured Catherine, barely audible. But her point got across.

Sara had been kidnapped.

Presently, Grissom and Catherine became aware of a groaning emanating from somewhere nearby. They swiveled around, trying to see whence it was coming from.

"Vartann!" said Catherine suddenly, and started running over to the kitchen door. Grissom followed close behind, and saw what she had spotted.

Detective Vartann was lying, spread-eagled, on the linoleum in front of the door.

"What happened?" asked Catherine, kneeling down next to him.

"Someone...came up behind me...chloroform," he stuttered, before lapsing into silence and breathing heavily.

Dejected, Grissom cast his gaze out on the back yard.


	15. Chapter 15

Senses started to return...Sara could hear a loud rumbling, feel the uncomfortably cramped position she was in, smell burning accelerant, taste warm blood...the only thing she could not do was see. Even after her eyes groggily opened up, she could see nothing.

There was just utter darkness.

It wasn't right. Where was she?

Sara attempted to find her back pocket (which was a difficult task, considering the tight conditions she had been forced into. Eventually, after groping blindly in the dark for some time, her fingers found the metal handle of her flashlight. She extracted it and switched it on.

She was locked in the trunk of a car. She had figured this out already, but was simply looking for confirmation of this fate. Strangely, when she found it, it didn't make her feel much better...

"Shit..." she whispered. This was bad. Very bad. Soon she was breathing fast and heavily. She lashed out, kicking and pounding at all sides of the trunk. She had to get out of there...the walls were closing in on her...

She had been in terrifying situations before, but nothing close to this: stowed in the trunk of a car owned by a madman who probably intended to kill her...or maybe even do worse.

Sara soon came to grips with sense. She had to calm down. She was trained to cope in deadly situations. Tears were reddening her brown eyes, but her brain was working furiously. Maybe she could find something in there to help her.

The trunk was stocked with an assortment of objects one might find in a car trunk: a spare tire, gas can, First Aid kit, and another flashlight. Great. Nothing useful there...

But then she noticed a small, black object wedged between the spare tire and the metal of the floor. It was a wallet. A wallet! If it was her abductor's, it might have some information on him inside...

Hastily grabbing it, Sara wasted no time in examining it. She tore it open with zeal, and sure enough, there was a driver's license inside.

She was greeted by a blank stare from a much younger, goofier-haired Greg Sanders.

Cursing under her breath, Sara stowed the wallet in her pocket, making a mental note to give it back to him when they got out of this whole mess.

As Sara was drawing her hand from her pocket, it brushed up on something attached to her belt. She grabbed it and yanked it off, and shone the beam of her flashlight on it. It was her cell phone.

He hadn't taken her cell phone. Why would he leave it for her? Didn't he see it? Surely, though, he would have checked...

She dialed in a number and waited. No reception. It wasn't going to work while she was still in the trunk. If she was going to contact help, she'd have to wait until her kidnapper decided to let her out. When he did that, he'd surely take the phone away from her.

Just in case he actually hadn't noticed the phone, Sara hid it inside her shirt, hooking the clip onto her bra strap under her right arm.

Now all she could do was wait.

She didn't have to for very long, though. After about twenty minutes, the car began to slow and then ground to a halt. There was the sound of a door closing, and footsteps on gravel. Sara waited, with baited breath, for the door to pop open...

Finally it did, and Sara looked up into her abductor's face. What was visible of his face, that was, for most of it was hidden by a mask. He hadn't taken it off yet.

"Come on," it said brusquely, and grabbed her by the left arm.

Sara didn't need second-telling from a man who had already tried to kill four of her friends. She hastily obeyed, swinging her legs from the car and hoisting herself out.

"Hold out your hands," the man commanded.

Sara did as she was told and held her shaking hands out, palms up. The man forced them together and held them tight at the wrists. With his free hand, he extracted a short length of rope from his pocket and threw it over her wrists, tying it off so tightly that the coarse threads dug painfully into her skin.

The man then stepped behind her. Sara didn't look round, but merely stared straight ahead. If he was going to kill her then and there, she'd rather not see it.

Then she felt something hard and blunt jab her in the small of the back. She didn't need to look to know what it was.

"Move," growled her abductor, and as a further incentive (though it was unnecessary), the hammer of his gun gave a menacing click.

Sara started to walk forward, down a dirt path that led into a dark, foreboding clump of trees. The sun was setting far behind them, so they were silhouetted against a reddening sky, making them look even more sinister.

How long had she been in the car for? She had been checking out Orwell's place at about noon. She glanced down at her watch wrist and tried to see the time, but they were by now entering the forest and it was impossible to see the face, let alone hands.

Soon they were in almost total darkness, as the light that was the trail entrance shrank away. Eventually, the captor switched on a flashlight and shone it on the path ahead of Sara, all the while keeping his gun trained on her back. It was starting to hurt quite a bit.

"Where are we – ?" began Sara, but she was cut off.

"Quiet!" the man ordered, giving her a sharp jab with the gun barrel.

Suddenly, acting on impulse, Sara stopped abruptly and turned round to face the man. Nothing was on her mind now except the hatred coursing through her veins.

"Look, if you're going to take me hostage, I'd at least like to know why!" she blurted out angrily. "If – "

But she was silenced as the man raised his gun and aimed it right between her eyes.

"Look, I wouldn't tell you even if I knew," he answered calmly, but there was a distinctly dangerous tone in his voice. "I'm just doing a friend a favour."

"A friend?" repeated Sara incredulously. So...there was an accomplice?

"A friend," he replied. "Now, unless you get a move on, you're going to need a bit more than a friend to do you a favour."

Sara took the hint and turned around, allowing herself to be led once more down the trail. She could feel her feet sinking into the thick mud beneath them, and realized that they must be at least a mile into the woods. Finally, the beam of the man's flashlight fell upon a wooden gate.

"Open it," he commanded. Sara reached a shaky palm out, and pushed gently on it. It swung smoothly open, and the abductor led her through.

They were standing on a lawn. Not a smooth, perfectly kept lawn like you saw back in Vegas. This one was tangled and wild, as though it had never seen a lawn mower in its existence. Strange weeds and plants shot out of the ground at scattered intervals, some intertwining with the fence.

The yard that they were standing in seemed to be huge, because it stretched off in all directions, even into the shadows of the trees. A rather depressing looking bungalow stood in the middle, its dilapidated roof sporting an exquisite exhibition of moss. Creepers climbed up the walls, and the windows (emanating a bright yellow light) were encrusted with mold and grime.

Sara and the man walked down a rock path, nearly hidden beneath the long grass, and straight up to the door. He reached out from behind Sara and took the rusty handle, and opened the door. Unlike the gate, it creaked loudly as it ground open. Sara was led brusquely inside the cottage.

The inside seemed to be mostly composed of one room, but there were two doors: one on either end.

The man turned off his flashlight and then grabbed Sara by the arm. The took her over to a severely ugly orange couch and pushed her so hard that she toppled onto it and nearly tipped it over.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said, a hint of gloating in his voice. "But I'm afraid that might be a bit difficult," he added, extracting his duct tape again. He put his gun down on the coffee table and pulled off a long stretch. He then turned Sara on to her back and secured her tightly to the couch by her legs.

"Right, now, I'm off to attend to some unfinished business," he said, standing up and putting away the duct tape. He slid his gun into his belt and headed for the door.

"Oh, by the way, if you manage to untie yourself, I wouldn't suggest trying to leave too soon. You see, there's only one exit, and my aim is very..."

To demonstrate the point, his pointed his pistol and blew the doorknob off one of the two doors.

"Nighty night." With that, he returned the gun to his belt once more and exited. After the door slammed shut, there was the sound of a lock clicking, and then total silence fell.

It was a few minutes before Sara was able to think straight again. How the hell was she going to get out of this one?

She wriggled with all her strength against the bond keeping her on the couch, and to her surprise, she found that she was able to loosen it quite easily. After a short while, it was loose enough that she was able to sit up, and even with her hands stuck together, could rip the duct tape from her feet.

She turned and threw her feet over the edge of the couch, sitting up straight. She raised her wrists to her mouth and tear the tape from them with her teeth. After spitting a few lingering shreds of plastic from her mouth, she tore her phone out of her shirt and raised her finger to dial a number.

Just as she was about to press the first button, an electronic ringing filled the room as the cell phone went off. For a moment, Sara was terrified that the sound might alert her kidnapper, so she flicked it open hastily.

Slowly, she raised the phone to her ear, and heard a voice come through.

"Sara?" A wave of relief washed over her; it was Grissom.

"G-Grissom?" she stammered back.

"Are you okay?" he asked. There was a definite note of anxiety in his voice.

"I've been k-kidnapped," she replied. "Of course I'm not okay!"

"Calm down, Sara," said Grissom, in what was obviously meant to be a soothing tone.

"How am I supposed to calm down?" Sara's anger was starting to overcome her fear at this point. How dare he talk about being calm when she was trapped by a murderous lunatic?

"Look, if you just help me out, we can find you," said Grissom.

Sara took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself down. "Okay," she said finally, trying desperately to keep her voice steady.

"Do you have any idea where you are?" asked Grissom.

"I don't know," answered Sara. "A forest somewhere. I'm in this mouldy old house somewhere in the middle of it. There's a big fence surrounding it."

"Is there anything else you can tell us?"

"No, there was no name or number or anything."

"Okay, don't worry. We're going to find you."

"Wait, if you find the place, be careful," Sara warned desperately. "He says he's keeping watch."

"Don't worry about us."

With that, the line went dead, and Sara Sidle was alone once more.


	16. Chapter 16

"Did you manage to trace the cell phone signal?"

"Well, I narrowed it down to a one kilometer radius. But I'm afraid we're not going to get much better than that."

Catherine peered at the computer screen. Sure enough, there was a translucent blue circle stationed on the map displayed there. Half of the circle was covering urban area. The other half was over a forest, a few houses scattered about inside of it.

"Well, it's got to be one of those ones," said Catherine, pointing to the latter. An electronic beeping announced the map's arrival from the printer. "Thanks a lot."

With that, Catherine strode out of the room. She bolted down the hallways to Grissom's office, where he was pacing back and forth. This was a bad sign; it took a lot of stress to get Grissom worried. Warrick was there too, simply leaning against a wall and taking deep breaths.

"We narrowed it down to this radius," she said, not bothering with greetings.

"Well, it has to be one of these six," said Grissom, circling each of the small houses in the forest. "In the pictures of Greg, there was a forest outside the window."

"So all we've got to do is check out each one of those houses," said Warrick.

"That'd waste a lot of time," said Catherine.

"Unless we split our officers up," said Warrick.

"We want to keep our manpower intact," said Grissom.

"There isn't exactly going to be much manpower to split up." Brass had just entered the office, looking grim.

"What do you mean?" asked Grissom, removing his glasses. Brass' tone didn't sound good.

The detective looked extremely uneasy. "I just got off the phone with the sheriff," he said.

Grissom shut his eyes. This was getting worse every second. "And?"

"Don't tell me..." Warrick was beginning to look mutinous.

"He says he's not going to provide us with any manpower," said Brass, like he was trying to get the sentence over with.

A deathly silence hung in the already tense air after these words ceased.

"What...?" said Catherine finally, in a hollow voice.

"You heard me," said Brass. "He says he isn't willing to risk losing any more officers like we did last time. Doesn't want to chance it."

"Son of a bitch!" roared Warrick so loudly that techs two rooms over looked up.

Grissom sat down in his chair, rested his elbows on his desk, and put his head in his hands. He massaged his temples until they were sore with the constant kneading of his fingertips.

"I don't believe this," he muttered.

So that was it? Two CSIs were missing, two were in hospital, two men were dead, and he was just going to let it go? Did he even care?

"He says we should just work with the evidence we have," Brass added.

"What evidence?" said Grissom. "We don't have any evidence!"

"I told him that. He just shrugged and said, 'Then wait till he attacks again.'"

"That's it?" Catherine blurted out. "Just sit around and wait to be picked off?"

"I'm going to have a talk with him!" snarled Warrick, and had actually started out the door when Grissom spoke.

"You can't do that, Warrick," he said. "We can't lose you."

"What are you talking about?"

"If you lose it with the sheriff, he might put you in a cell. And we can't have you there. We need all the manpower we can get."

Brass, Catherine, and Warrick all looked at Grissom, puzzled.

"Gil?"

"To save Sara and Greg," Grissom continued, as thought this settled the matter.

"Gil, what do you – " Then it dawned on Brass in mid-sentence.

"You're suggesting we go find them ourselves?" asked Catherine.

"No one else is going to help us," said Grissom. "And they've only got so long. What else can we do?"

"Gris, I'm not sure about this," said Warrick. "If the sheriff finds out – "

"You were ready to kill him a second ago," said Grissom, slightly amused. "Why's going over his head such a problem?"

The three of them considered this for a moment.

"I'm with you, Gil, but if we get caught..." said Brass.

"I know. We all go on probation or end up in jail. But that's a chance I'm willing to take."

They were all in awe of Grissom's stoicism. But there was something else brewing in their hearts as well...Grissom's words were instilling a new kind of daring into them. Who cared what the stupid sheriff said? Their friends' lives were on the line.

"Who's with me?"

"I'm game," said Warrick.

"Count me in," added Catherine.

"With you all the way," said Brass.

Grissom smiled and stood up. "Let's go get the bad guys."


	17. Chapter 17

Sara had no sooner hung up her phone – the line had gone dead - than she was troubled by a disturbing sound. She looked around hurriedly for the source, but could not see one.

Just then, she heard it again. There was someone else in the house with her. Unconsciously, her hand flew to her hip where her gun was normally kept, but the attacker had been sensible enough to remove it.

She heard the voice groan out again. It seemed to be saying something...

"Sara..."

---

"I think I've found it," Brass muttered into his walkie-talkie. He was standing between a pair of tall, gnarly trees, his eyes trained intently on the far-off, depressing excuse for a cottage ahead of him.

Grissom's voice crackled through. "You have? Which one?"

"The one deepest in," reported Brass, consulting the map he had brought with him.

"Figures," growled Warrick's irritated voice.

"Any resistance yet?" asked Grissom.

"Nothing," replied Brass. "Keep your weapons out, anyway. Try and get here as quick as possible."

"We'll be there in a minute, Jim," said Catherine.

"Great."

A few minutes later, Brass heard a crashing sound in the bushes ahead. He raised his weapon, prepared for an attack. But it was not a murderous lunatic, but Warrick who came running out from between the trees. He was out of breath and clutching a stitch in his side.

"Got here as fast as I could," he said breathlessly. "The others here yet?"

Brass shook his head. "Not yet. How far behind you were they?"

"Not too far," he said. "I just figured they might have found a shortcut or something."

It took only a few more minutes for Catherine, followed closely by Grissom, to arrive. They too looked like they had run for several miles without stopping.

"Any sign of him?" asked Catherine.

"Not yet," said Warrick.

"Well, let's get moving," said Grissom.

---

"Who's there?" Sara called out. She cautiously got off the couch, raising her fists into a defensive position.

"Sara..." called the voice again, this time stronger. It seemed to be coming from the room on her right. Slowly but surely, Sara stepped across the wooden floor. It creaked with every step.

She was very close to the door now.

"Sara, please..." came the voice.

She could reach out and touch the doorknob.

Her fingers closed over it, and she flung it open. The room that she came into was not really a room at all. It was more like the shortest corridor she'd ever seen, a staircase leading down directly after the door.

Sara took a deep breath, grasped the dusty banister, and started to walk down the stairs.

---

"Spread out," said Brass. "Catherine, you approach the house from the left side there. Rick, you take the right. I'll come in from the back, and Gil, you've got the front."

They all nodded their agreement. Each and every one of them cocked their weapon, though they were already loaded, just to make sure. Then they all went their separate ways (except Catherine and Brass, who went the same way to get to their destinations).

Brass, of course, was more used to this sort of thing than the others. However, this fact did not make him any less tense. Truthfully, it unsettled him even more. He was concerned about all of them.

If all of them were concerned about one thing, it was what they would find once they got inside the house...

---

Sara's foot touched hard concrete. She had reached the bottom of the stairs. The air here was cold and clammy, and oddly stagnant. It felt like someone had died there and taken the life of the place with them.

Two steps in front of her was another door.

"Sara!"

The voice was definitely coming from behind it.

---

The three CSIs and the detective were in position around the house. They were each a good twenty yards from the fence, but they were still going very slowly. They couldn't afford any slip-ups. The attacker could be hiding around any tree, under any bush, prepared to spring like a tiger.

Warrick flinched as he heard a rustling to his left and pointed his gun, but then relaxed (somewhat) as a squirrel bolted from the brush. This was one of the most nerve-wracking things he had ever done, topped only by trying to find Nick in that box...

After a while, Brass' voice came through the radio. "I'm at the fence," he reported.

Soon, they all were, and had all informed the others so.

"Seen anything?" asked Catherine.

"Nothing," growled Warrick.

"Yet," said Grissom unhelpfully.

"Thanks, Gris," said Warrick.

"Okay, let's go," said Brass. The four of them (though they could not see each other through the darkness) carefully raised their guns and climbed over the rotting fence. Grissom felt his sag and heard it crack unpleasantly as he shifted himself over it.

Suddenly, there was a crash. It sounded like wood breaking. The four of them pointed their weapons in the direction the sound had come from, but could not see anything.

"What was that?" said Catherine.

"I dunno," said Brass. "I'll check it out, I'm pretty close to it."

"Be careful," warned Grissom.

"Alright, let's check out this house," suggested Warrick.

"I'll go in," volunteered Grissom. "Catherine, Warrick, you guys circle the building. See if you can find anyone."

"Are you sure?" asked Catherine warily. "He could be inside."

"That's a risk we've got to take."

Although hesitant to let their esteemed leader in by himself, Warrick and Catherine agreed.

"Let us check the door, first," said Catherine.

---

Sara placed her hand on the rusty handle on the door and turned it. As soon as she did so, there was a chink of metal and the knob broke off. "Shit!" she hissed. It opened away from her; now she had no way of getting in.

She put her hands on the wood and pushed with all her might, trying to force it open. It would not budge.

"Sara, hurry!" groaned the voice. Now she was closer and could hear the voice more clearly, she recognized it and gasped.

"Greg!" she shouted through the door. "Greg, are you okay?"

"No," he replied. "Get me out of here!"

"I'm coming!" she was getting frantic now. She had to get in there somehow.

She took a step backwards, mustered up all her strength, and delivered a powerful kick to where the doorknob should have been. There was a crack as the locking mechanism started to break. She took aim once again and lashed out. This time there was a definitive crunch and the door wobbled open.

Sara burst into the room.

---

Catherine pressed her back against the wood of the cabin's left side and heard it creak. She tentatively edged her way towards the front side of the building. She leaned over just far enough that her eyes peeked round the corner. She couldn't see anyone outside the door.

"Clear," she whispered into her radio.

Moments later, she heard a faint rustling as Grissom carefully crept through the grass. Trusting that he would have enough sense to look through the windows before bursting in, Catherine retreated back to her side of the house.

The radio came to life once more. "I found what caused that crash. A section of the fence collapsed. I found a footprint in the mud near it."

Perfect! Just when it was time to check the back.

Just as carefully as before, she moved across the side, but this time in the other direction. Once again, she peered around to check there was no one there. There wasn't, so she moved around the corner.

There was a concrete porch on the back, shadowed by a shingled awning. The slanted overhang was held up by a set of wooden posts. Creeping plants skirted up the pillars and reached towards the light coming from the small window. The porch was cut off somewhere in the middle by a shed, but presumably continued on the other side. Two old trash cans stood next to the shed.

Catherine walked tentatively up to these and quickly but quietly lifted the lids off, just in case. A pungent stench reached her nostrils, but there was no one in them. She returned their lids to the tops and relished the fresh night air around her.

Then Catherine's blood ran cold.

There was a clump from the other side of the shed. It was an unmistakable sound: the sound of a boot hitting concrete. She raised her pistol high up in front of her and pressed her side in on the shed. She took a few careful steps forward. Her heard pounding against her ribs, Catherine leapt out from behind the shed and aimed at –

"Warrick!" she gasped. "Jesus, you scared me."

"Sorry," he said, walking up to her. "Did you find anything?"

"No," she answered, catching her breath. "You?"

"Actually, yeah," said Warrick. "Come check this out."

---

"Oh my God," uttered Sara. "Greg!"

He was strapped to a pole. He looked like – there was no other word for it – death. It was worse than the pictures Grissom received on his phone. There was an angry slash and puncture in his chest. The blood-encrusted bandage that once was wrapped around his arm lay on the floor, revealing a yellowing wound near his shoulder. His nose was swollen and crimson. Dry blood blossomed from it and ran down into his mouth and over his chin.

"Get me off here!" he grunted. "I'm going out of my mind!"

She heard a pat as a drip of water hit his head. She looked up and saw a pipe directly above his head, a drop of water hovering at the lip. It was almost like Chinese water torture.

"Okay, I'll get you off there," Sara assured him, upon Greg snarling in frustration. "Hold on."

She cast around the basement frantically, for anything she could use to cut Greg loose. There was nothing. Not a single tool found its home in that dank room.

Then she heard a creak on the stairs behind her.

---

"What is it?" asked Catherine. She and Warrick were crouched down on the right side of the house, examining it closely.

"It's a tobacco plant," said Warrick. "Or rather, a lot of them."

It was a large tobacco bush stretching from one side of the house to the other. It was very thick, and thriving with leaves. The aroma was infectious.

"This is the same stuff as we found on Greg's body," said Catherine, picking off a leaf and examining it.

"I thought the stuff we found was really high-end," said Warrick, taking it. "How does he get it to this quality?"

"Beats me," said Catherine. "But this links the owner of this cabin to the crime scene. Now we've got – "

She stopped abruptly.

"What?" said Warrick.

"Shh!" she hissed at him. "Did you hear that?"

There it was again. It was the sound of someone coming through the grass.

"Oh, shit," whispered Warrick.

They both heard it, but couldn't tell where it was coming from.

"Where is – "

Warrick was cut off as a black-clad man with a large pistol leapt out from behind the building and pointed his weapon. Catherine threw herself to the ground, and she and Warrick both let off two rounds. The man leapt over to the side with incredible agility, rolled himself upright, pointed, and pulled the trigger.

Catherine's head snapped to the side at the sound of a sharp intake of breath from Warrick. He was lifted off his feet and into the air, blood flying from what was irrefutably a bullet wound in the middle of his ribcage. He flew backwards through the air in a graceful arc and plummeted into the tobacco bush, where he lay still.

"WARRICK!" Catherine screamed. Enraged, she seized his gun. The attacker shot at her again, but she rolled out of the way, dirt exploding where she was seconds earlier. She pointed both her guns and pulled the triggers over and over. He disappeared into the night shadows, not a single bullet hitting him.

Catherine swore explosively and dropped her guns. She hauled Warrick out of the bush and shook him.

"Warrick! Warrick! Wake up!" she cried hoarsely. She felt his throat. There was a pulse, but it was very slow and faint. "Oh no...oh God no!"

---

Sara whirled round, her fists raised, and shrieked fiercely. She threw herself at the man who had just come through the door and brought him down to the ground. Mingled hatred and adrenaline pulsing through her veins, she pummeled him, hard.

She got him once in the jaw, and once in the cheekbone before he grabbed her hands and pushed her off him.

"Sara!" he shouted. "It's me!"

As she jumped to her feet, she realized who the man was for the first time.

"Grissom!" she gasped. "I'm – I'm so – "

"It's alright," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Don't worry about it. Is Greg okay?"

"What does it look like?" he moaned, struggling against the zap strap.

Grissom hurried into the room, pulling out his pocket-knife. He went to work cutting the plastic strap from behind Greg straight away. As soon as it snapped and fell to the ground, Greg jumped up off the floor and embraced Sara. She put her arms around him and patted him on the back, her eyes glistening with relief.

"Thank you," he gasped.

"You're safe, Greg," Sara replied. "We've got you."

But Grissom, rather than relieved, looked extremely alarmed. "Did anyone else just hear gunshots?"

---

Catherine put her hands on Warrick's chest and pumped frantically, trying to revive his heartbeat. It was not working. All she was doing was pushing the bullet further in.

"Please wake up!" she snarled frantically, tears of frustration and panic welling up in her eyes.

Just then, she heard the cock of a hammer and slowly turned her eyes up. The man was looming over her, his revolver pointed down. She could see straight up the barrel.

"It's too late," he said in a deep, gloating voice that made Catherine shudder with loathing. "He's gone. And so are you."

He started to squeeze gently down on the trigger, but before he managed to pull it completely, a furious voice interrupted him.

"Nice try, you son of a bitch!" roared Brass as he jumped into the light, pointing his gun. The attacker swung his up in response, but it was too late.

Without hesitation or a hint of mercy on his features, Brass fired. But he didn't do it just once. He pulled the trigger till the cows came home, releasing his entire clip in the direction of Catherine's assailant.

Before he'd even raised his gun all the way, a bullet aimed with the precision of a hardened city cop struck the bastard squarely in the chest, spattering blood everywhere. As he keeled over backwards, a second streaked through his collarbone, causing him to spin in the air. And then as he flew towards the ground, a third smashed, full-force, into the back of his neck, where his spine joined his skull. His head jerked backwards as the bone splintered, and then he landed face-first on the ground with a sickening crunch. He moved no more.

Brass tossed his empty gun away and rushed to Warrick's side.

"He needs an ambulance," he said. "I'll call for one."

Suddenly, there was the sound of a door opening and Grissom rocketed around the side of the house, his pistol held in front of him. A massive surge of relief swept through Catherine and Brass as they saw Sara following closely behind, supporting Greg.

"Sara! Greg!" Catherine ran over to them and put Greg's other arm around her shoulder, helping Sara. Greg grunted a feeble 'Thanks'.

"Is everyone alright?" asked Grissom hurriedly.

"Warrick's hurt badly," said Catherine. "But he's in better shape than our guy."

She bumped the man's oddly bent head with her foot, causing it to loll unpleasantly.

Grissom knelt down and stuck his gun back in his belt. He put two fingers on the man's throat, feeling for a pulse.

"Dead," he reported, but there was no need. "Stone dead."

"Paramedics are on their way," said Brass, hurrying over. "You alright, Gil?"

"I'm fine." He was now removing the mask from the corpse's face. "Who took care of Monsieur Moreau, here?"

For the man who lay upon the ground, blood staining his shirt and the grass around him, was indeed Gaston Moreau. His deceptively handsome face was twisted in an expression of stupefied pain.

"That would be me," said Brass, shaking his head slowly. "Gaston Moreau."

"He was working for someone," Greg managed to choke out. "Check his pockets."

Grissom was already doing it. He pulled out a wallet, a driver's license within which confirmed his identity. There were a few bills and some cards, but nothing more. He tried all of Gaston's pockets before finding a crumpled piece of paper, a bloodstain (not his own; his trousers were unbloodied) on the corner.

He unfurled it and held it in the light from the window. "'Thank you for avenging me,'" he read aloud. "'Call me when you've finished. 555-5496.'"

"Call it," said Catherine at once.

Grissom whipped out his cell phone and dialed the number. He heard four electronic rings before a cool female's voice came through on the answering machine.

"Hey, you've reached Liz Novia's place. I'm not around right now, but leave a message and I'll give you a call."


	18. Chapter 18

"Why did you do it?" asked Brass.

He and Grissom sat side by side at the table in the interrogation room. They were both leaning on the polished surface and looking intently at the subject on the other side.

Liz Novia was slouched in her chair. Her arms were folded across her red spaghetti-strap top, and she was tapping the fingers of her left hand on her right arm. Though she was cornered like a rabbit, she still looked proud and defiant. She tossed her almond-streaked hair back and said, "You don't remember me?"

Brass gave it a bit of thought for a moment and said, "No."

"Well, do you remember Lily Hawkins?" she asked.

"Lily Hawkins died eight years ago," said Brass. "We were both on that case."

"Then I should have killed you first," replied Liz coldly.

Something clicked in Grissom's mind, and he leaned forward, an expression of understanding crossing his features. "Ashley Hawkins?"

Liz turned her head so her eyes bored into Grissom's. To his immense surprise, she smiled. "No one's called me that for seven years," she said. "You see, a year after Lily's murder, the case went cold. You stopped investigating, and I was powerless to do anything. I swore I would get revenge, no matter what the cost. So I changed my identity, dyed my hair, even got plastic surgery, so that I would not be recognized when the time came. But you recognized me," she said, turning back to Grissom. "How did you do that?"

"It was your eyes," he replied. "As soon as you mentioned your sister, I could tell. I always remember eyes, especially ones like yours."

She had an unusual expression on her face. It was clear she considered it a blow that he recognized her, but it also seemed she thought it a compliment.

"So where does Gaston Moreau enter into this?" asked Brass.

"I met him about a year ago," replied Liz, or rather, Ashley. "A little while after Tony and I started dating. He took me to that restaurant every week, and we got to know him. He and I got really friendly – a little more than Tony realized. I learned that he hated the law just as much as I did. His parents were murdered when he was twelve, and the murderer got off.

"Anyway, after our affair had gone on for a year, I knew I could trust him. So I formed my plan, and then proposed it to Gaston. He agreed, and placed the phone threat the next day.

"I gave him the key to Tony's house, where he called from. He stole the Japanese knife from the house – the knife that Tony had stolen from Dustin Orwell. We hoped the evidence would lead you to Tony, so then you'd put him away and Gaston and I could be together while we took our revenge. We covered our tracks perfectly."

"Until Gaston screwed up," Grissom corrected her.

"Completely," added Brass. "All of your targets survived."

She looked at him coldly.

"There's one thing I don't understand, though," he said. "Why the precise pattern? You were killing the ones who had been CSIs the least time, and working your way up. Why?"

"So you'd know what it was like to lose someone you were supposed to look after," she replied. "Like I lost Lily."

"Come on," said Brass. "There had to be a better way to get justice."

"An old Chinese proverb says that 'It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.' I took action."

"I know another old Chinese proverb," said Grissom. "It goes something like this: 'Schools of fish come to those who wait patiently; if the big ones don't come, the little ones will.'"

There was utter contempt in Ashley's eyes when she looked over at Grissom again. "Well, the little ones weren't going to do much for me."

Grissom sat there, his features unreadable, as Brass put the cuffs around Ashley's wrists and led her away to her fate. Her eyes never left Grissom the whole time.

THE END

---

And they all lived happily ever after! Except for Ashley, who's going away for life, and Gaston, who's not going to be doing much in the way of living at all.

So, I've got to know: What did y'all think? Did everyone get what they deserved? Please review!

Until next time, my faithful readers. I'll just leave you with a few words. Remember: the evidence never lies!


End file.
